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The Oppression Of Women Knows No Ethnic Nor Racial Boundaries, True, But That Does Not Mean It Is Identical Within Those Boundaries.
-Audre Lorde
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The Oppression Of Women

Audre Lorde
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The Oppression Of Women Knows No Ethnic Nor Racial Boundaries, True, But That Does Not Mean It Is Identical Within Those Boundaries.

Understanding the Quote: "the oppression of women knows no ethnic nor racial boundaries, true, but..."

This quote by Audre Lorde reflects deeply on the theme of mean. It connects to the universal human journey of purpose, motivation, and reflection. Often categorized under Mean, Doe, Oppression, the quote offers insight, emotional clarity, and intellectual inspiration to readers worldwide.

Whether you’re a student exploring new ideas, a leader trying to motivate your team, or someone seeking direction in life — this quote provides value. It resonates because it’s more than words — it’s a bridge between experience and wisdom. It shows how Audre Lorde interprets life's core challenges and triumphs.

Lessons From the Quote

This quote teaches resilience and focus. It reminds readers that no matter where they stand in life, reflection and self-awareness lead to growth. Each word has meaning, and when studied, it becomes clear how impactful thoughtful language can be.

About Audre Lorde

Audre Lorde is celebrated for insightful thoughts on mean and doe. Their legacy lives on through writings that guide, comfort, and inspire. Discover more on their profile page.

Actionable Takeaways

  • Reflect on how this quote applies to your current life path.
  • Share the message with someone who needs inspiration.
  • Write your thoughts on this quote in a journal or blog post.
  • Use it as a daily affirmation or reminder.

Closing Thoughts

Quotes like this endure because they capture universal truths. They comfort us in solitude and empower us in groups. Carry this quote forward — live by its wisdom, share its message, and keep its essence alive.

Views: 17918
Topic
Mean
Doe
Oppression
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I Believe One Of The Hardest Things You Can Do Is Conquer Your Fears, But If You Have A Goal, Then It's Your Job To Open Up And Let It Be Real No Matter How Scary It Seems.
Jobs
Real
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In The Recognition Of Loving Lies The Answer To Despair.
Lying
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We Have Been Raised To Fear The Yes Within Ourselves, Our Deepest Cravings.
Raised
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Women Are Powerful And Dangerous.
Powerful
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African Tradition Deals With Life As An Experience To Be Lived. In Many Respects, It Is Much Like The Eastern Philosophies In That We See Ourselves As A Part Of A Life Force; We Are Joined, For Instance, To The Air, To The Earth. We Are Part Of The Whole-life Process. We Live In Accordance With, In A Kind Of Correspondence With The Rest Of The World As A Whole. And Therefore Living Becomes An Experience, Rather Than A Problem, No Matter How Bad Or How Painful It May Be.
Philosophy
Oneness
Air
There Are Lesbians, God Knows... If You Came Up Through Lesbian Circles In The Forties And Fifties In New York... Who Were Not Feminist And Would Not Call Themselves Feminists.
New York
Circles
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June Jordan Once Said Something Which Is Just Wonderful. I'm Paraphrasing Her-that Her Function As A Poet Was To Make Revolution Irresistible. Well O.k. That Is The Function Of Us All, As Creative Artists, To Make The Truth, As We See It Irresistible.
Artist
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When I Speak Of The Erotic, Then I Speak Of It As An Assertion Of The Life Force Of Women; Of That Creative Energy Empowered, The Knowledge And Use Of Which We Are Now Reclaiming In Our Language, Our History, Our Dancing, Our Loving, Our Work, Our Lives.
Dancing
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Part Of The Lesbian Consciousness Is An Absolute Recognition Of The Erotic Within Our Lives And, Taking That A Step Further, Dealing With The Erotic Not Only In Sexual Terms.
Erotic
Steps
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Sometimes We Drug Ourselves With Dreams Of New Ideasl The Head Will Save Us. The Brain Alone Will Set Us Free. But There Are No New Ideas Waiting In The Wings To Save Us As Women, As Human. There Are Only Old And Forgotten Ones, New Combinations, Extrapolations And Recognitions From Within Ourselves--along With The Renewed Courage To Try Them Out.
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If You Don’t Define Yourself For Yourself Then You Will Be Crushed Into Other's Fantasies Of You And Eaten Alive
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I Am A Black Feminist. I Mean I Recognize That My Power As Well As My Primary Oppressions Come As A Result Of My Blackness As Well As My Womaness, And Therefore My Struggles On Both Of These Fronts Are Inseparable.
Struggle
Mean
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Pain Is Important: How We Evade It, How We Succumb To It, How We Deal With It, How We Transcend It. ... Pain Will Always Either Change Or Stop. Always. ... The Confidence That It Will Change Is What Makes Bearing It Possible. So Pain Is Fluid. It Is Only When You Conceive Of It As Something Static That It Is Unbearable.
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I Have No Creative Use For Guilt, Yours Or My Own. Guilt Is Only Another Way Of Avoiding Informed Action, Of Buying Time Out Of The Pressing Need To Make Clear Choices, Out Of The Approaching Storm That Can Feed The Earth As Well As Bend The Trees.
Choices
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The Sharing Of Joy, Whether Physical, Emotional, Psychic, Or Intellectual, Forms A Bridge Between The Sharers Which Can Be The Basis For Understanding Much Of What Is Not Shared Between Them, And Lessens The Threat Of Their Difference.
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Divide And Conquer Must Become Define And Empower.
Empowering
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Unless One Lives And Loves In The Trenches, It Is Difficult To Remember That The War Against Dehumanization Is Ceaseless.
Life And Love
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You Are The One That You Are Looking For.
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In Discussions Around The Hiring And Firing Of Black Faculty At Universities, The Charge Is Frequently Heard That Black Women Are More Easily Hired Than Are Black Men.
Men
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Difference Is That Raw And Powerful Connection From Which Our Personal Power Is Forged... We Have Been Taught To Either Ignore Our Differences Or To View Them As Causes For Separation And Suspicion Rather Than As Forces For Change. Without Community, There Is No Liberation, Only The Most Vulnerable And Temporary Armistice Between An Individual And Her Oppression... Survival Is Learning To Take Our Difference And Make Them Strengths.
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And This Is A Grave Responsibility, Projected From Within Each Of Us, Not To Settle For The Convenient, The Shoddy, The Conventionally Expected, Nor The Merely Safe.
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Black Women Are Programmed To Define Ourselves Within This Male Attention And To Compete With Each Other For It Rather Than To Recognize And Move Upon Our Common Interests.
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Somedays, If Bitterness Were A Whetstone, I Could Be Sharp As Grief.
Grief
Bitterness
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I Have Come To Believe Over And Over Again That What Is Most Important To Me Must Be Spoken, Made Verbal And Shared, Even At The Risk Of Having It Bruised Or Misunderstood.
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I Learned To Read From Mrs. Augusta Baker, The Children's Librarian. ... If That Was The Only Good Deed That Lady Ever Did In Her Life, May She Rest In Peace. Because That Deed Saved My Life, If Not Sooner, Then Later, When Sometimes The Only Thing I Had To Hold On To Was Knowing I Could Read.
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I Am A Bleak Heroism Of Words That Refuse To Be Buried Alive With The Liars.
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The Quality Of Light By Which We Scrutinize Our Lives Has Direct Bearing Upon The Product Which We Live, And Upon The Changes Which We Hope To Bring About Through Those Lives.
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There Are No New Ideas. There Are Only New Ways Of Making Them Felt.
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If I Cannot Air This Pain And Alter It, I Will Surely Die Of It. That's The Beginning Of Social Protest.
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I Was Going To Die, If Not Sooner, Then Later, Whether Or Not I Had Ever Spoken Myself. My Silences Had Not Protected Me. Your Silence Will Not Protect You.
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Whenever A Conscious Black Woman Raises Her Voice On Issues Central To Her Existence, Somebody Is Going To Call Her Strident, Because They Don't Want To Hear About It, Nor Us. I Refuse To Be Silenced And I Refuse To Be Trivialized, Even If I Do Not Say What I Have To Say Perfectly.
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Pain Is An Event ... Suffering, On The Other Hand, Is The Nightmare Reliving Of Unscrutinized And Unmetabolized Pain.
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I Would Like To Do Another Piece Of Fiction Dealing With A Number Of Issues: Lesbian Parenting, The 1960's, And Interracial Relationships In The Lesbian And Gay Community.
Gay
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For The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House. They May Allow Us To Temporarily Beat Him At His Own Game, But They Will Never Enable Us To Bring About Genuine Change. Racism And Homophobia Are Real Conditions Of All Our Lives In This Place And Time. I Urge Each One Of Us Here To Reach Down Into That Deep Place Of Knowledge Inside Herself And Touch That Terror And Loathing Of Any Difference That Lives Here. See Whose Face It Wears. Then The Personal As The Political Can Begin To Illuminate All Our Choices.
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Tell Them About How You're Never Really A Whole Person If You Remain Silent, Because There's Always That One Little Piece Inside You That Wants To Be Spoken Out, And If You Keep Ignoring It, It Gets Madder And Madder And Hotter And Hotter, And If You Don't Speak It Out One Day It Will Just Up And Punch You In The Mouth From The Inside.
One Day
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Say What You Have To Say Now! Don't Wait Until You're Sending Blips From The Other Side.
Waiting
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Poetry Is The Way We Help Give Name To The Nameless So It Can Be Thought.
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Revolution Is Not A One Time Event.
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Events
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As A Black Lesbian Feminist Comfortable With The Many Different Ingredients Of My Identity, And A Woman Committed To Racial And Sexual Freedom From Oppression, I Find I Am Constantly Being Encouraged To Pluck Out Some One Aspect Of Myself And Present This As The Meaningful Whole, Eclipsing Or Denying The Other Parts Of Self. But This Is A Destructive And Fragmenting Way To Live.
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Women On Trains Have A Life That Is Exactly Livable The Precision Of Days Flashing Past
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There Is A Timbre Of Voice That Comes From Not Being Heard And Knowing / You Are Not Being Heard / Noticed Only By Others / Not Heard For The Same Reason.
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The Transformation Of Silence Into Language And Action Is An Act Of Self-revelation .
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You Loved People And You Came To Depend On Their Being There. But People Died Or Changed Or Went Away And It Hurt Too Much. The Only Way To Avoid That Poin Was Not To Love Anyone, And Not To Let Anyone Get Too Close Or Too Important. The Secret Of Not Being Hurt Like This Again, I Decided, Was Never Depending On Anyone, Never Needing, Never Loving.it Is The Last Dream Of Children, To Be Forever Untouched.
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Within The Lesbian Community I Am Black, And Within The Black Community I Am A Lesbian. Any Attack Against Black People Is A Lesbian And Gay Issue, Because I And Thousands Of Other Black Women Are Part Of The Lesbian Community. Any Attack Against Lesbians And Gays Is A Black Issue, Because Thousands Of Lesbians And Gay Men Are Black. There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppression.
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The Erotic Is A Resource Within Each Of Us That Lies In A Deeply Female And Spiritual Plane, Firmly Rooted In The Power Of Our Unexpressed Or Unrecognized Feeling. . . .
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The Erotic Is A Measure Between The Beginnings Of Our Sense Of Self And The Chaos Of Our Strongest Feelings.
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...my Experience With People Who Tried To Label Me Was That They Usually Did It To Either Dismiss Me Or Use Me.
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Use
We Recognize That All Knowledge Is Mediated Through The Body And That Feeling Is A Profound Source Of Information About Our Lives
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Anger Is An Appropriate Reaction To Racist Attitudes, As Is Fury When The Actions Arising From Those Attitudes Do Not Change.
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Anger Is Loaded With Information And Energy.
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Energy
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It Is Not Our Differences That Divide Us. It Is Our Inability To Recognize, Accept, And Celebrate Those Differences.
Inspirational
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I Am Still Learning - How To Take Joy In All The People I Am, How To Use All My Selves In The Service Of What I Believe, How To Accept When I Fail And Rejoice When I Succeed.
Perseverance
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From My Membership In All Of These Groups I Have Learned That Oppression And The Intolerance Of Difference Come In All Shapes And Sizes And Colors And Sexualities; And That Among Those Of Us Who Share The Goals Of Liberation And A Workable Future For Our Children, There Can Be No Hierarchies Of Oppression.
Children
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You Know How Fighting Fish Do It? They Blow Bubbles And In Each One Of Those Bubbles Is An Egg And They Float The Egg Up To The Surface. They Keep This Whole Heavy Nest Of Eggs Floating, And They're Constantly Repairing It. It's As If They Live In Both Elements.
Fighting
Blow
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When We Speak We Are Afraid Our Words Will Not Be Heard Or Welcomed. But When We Are Silent, We Are Still Afraid. So It Is Better To Speak.
Strong Women
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Silence
The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House.
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As We Come To Know, Accept, And Explore Our Feelings, They Will Become Sanctuaries And Fortresses And Spawning Grounds For The Most Radical And Daring Of Ideas-the House Of Difference So Necessary To Change And The Conceptualization Of Any Meaningful Action.
Meaningful
Ideas
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It Is Never Easy To Demand The Most From Ourselves, From Our Lives, From Our Work. To Encourage Excellence Is To Go Beyond The Encouraged Mediocrity Of Our Society Is To Encourage Excellence. But Giving In To The Fear Of Feeling And Working To Capacity Is A Luxury Only The Unintentional Can Afford, And The Unintentional Are Those Who Do Not Wish To Guide Their Own Destinies.
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My Fear Of Anger Taught Me Nothing.
Anger
Taught
We're Supposed To See "universal" Love As Heterosexual. What I Insist Upon In My Work Is That There Is No Such Thing As Universal Love In Literature.
Kinky
Literature
Universal Love
Black Women Sharing Close Ties With Each Other, Politically Or Emotionally, Are Not The Enemies Of Black Men.
Men
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Black
I Have Always Wanted To Be Both Man And Woman, To Incorporate The Strongest And Richest Parts Of My Mother And Father Within/into Me - To Share Valleys And Mountains Upon My Body The Way The Earth Does In Hills And Peaks.
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Curves
Shifting
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Hands
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Institutionalized Rejection Of Difference Is An Absolute Necessity In A Profit Economy Which Needs Outsiders As Surplus People.
Differences
People
Rejection
The Strongest Lesson I Can Teach My Son Is The Same Lesson I Teach My Daughter: How To Be Who He Wishes To Be For Himself.
Daughter
Son
Wish
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Process
Riot
Learning Process
Our Feelings Are Our Most Genuine Paths To Knowledge. They Are Chaotic, Sometimes Painful, Sometimes Contradictory, But They Come From Deep Within Us. And We Must Key Into Those Feelings... This Is How New Visions Begin.
Keys
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Vision
But The True Feminist Deals Out Of A Lesbian Consciousness Whether Or Not She Ever Sleeps With Women.
Motivational
Sleep
Feminist
And Where The Words Of Women Are Crying To Be Heard, We Must Each Of Us Recognize Our Responsibility To Seek Those Words Out, To Read Them And Share Them And Examine Them In Their Pertinence To Our Lives.
Responsibility
Cry
Share
Pain Is Important: How We Evade It, How We Succumb To It, How We Deal With It, How We Transcend It.
Pain
Important
Deals
Anger, Used, Does Not Destroy. Hatred Does.
Hatred
Black History
Doe
Some Women Wait For Themselves Around The Next Corner And Call The Empty Spot Peace But The Opposite Of Living Is Only Not Living And The Stars Do Not Care.
Stars
Opposites
Waiting
My Silences Had Not Protected Me. Your Silence Will Not Protect You. But For Every Real Word Spoken, For Every Attempt I Had Ever Made To Speak Those Truths For Which I Am Still Seeking, I Had Made Contact With Other Women While We Examined The Words To Fit A World In Which We All Believed, Bridging Our Differences.
Real
Differences
Silence
Advocating The Mere Tolerance Of Difference Between Women Is The Grossest Reformism. It Is A Total Denial Of The Creative Function Of Difference In Our Lives. Difference Must Be Not Merely Toleration, But Seen As A Fund Of Necessary Polarities Between Which Our Creativity Can Spark Like A Dialectic. Only Then Does The Necessity For Interdependency Become Unthreatening. Only Within The Interdependency Of Different Strengths, Acknowledged And Equal, Can The Power To Seek New Ways Of Being In The World Generate, As Well As The Courage And Sustenance To Act Where There Are No Charters
Creativity
Differences
Creative
I Stand Here As A Black Lesbian Feminist, Having Been Invited To Comment Within The Only Panel At This Conference Where The Input Of Black Feminists And Lesbians Is Represented. What This Says About The Vision Of This Conference Is Sad, In A Country Where Racism, Sexism And Homophobia Are Inseparable. . . .
Country
Heterosexuality Is
Racism
We Have To Consciously Study How To Be Tender With Each Other Until It Becomes A Habit Because What Was Native Has Been Stolen From Us, The Love Of Black Women For Each Other.
Black
Literature
Study
If You Come As Softly As Wind Within The Trees You May Hear What I Hear See What Sorrow Sees. If You Come As Lightly As Threading Dew I Will Take You Gladly Nor Ask More Of You. You May Sit Beside Me Silent As A Breath Only Those Who Stay Dead Shall Remember Death. And If You Come I Will Be Silent Nor Speak Harsh Words To You. I Will Not Ask You Why, Now. Or How, Or What You Do. We Shall Sit Here, Softly Beneath Two Different Years And The Rich Earth Between Us Shall Drink Our Tears.
Years
Wind
Two
What You Hear In My Voice Is Fury, Not Suffering. Anger, Not Moral Authority
Voice
Suffering
Moral
So It Is Better To Speak, Remembering We Were Never Meant To Survive.
Remember
Speak
For Those Of Us Who Write, It Is Necessary To Scrutinize Not Only The Truth Of What We Speak, But The Truth Of That Language By Which We Speak It.
Truth
Writing
Language
Every Woman I Have Ever Known Has Made A Lasting Impression On My Soul.
Soul
Lasting Impressions
Made
One Pays A Lot, We All Pay A Lot, For Awareness.
Pay
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Sometimes We Are Blessed With Being Able To Choose The Time, And The Arena, And The Manner Of Our Revolution, But More Usually We Must Do Battle Where We Are Standing.
Blessed
Battle
Able
The Fear Of Death Is That You Are Dying Too Soon. Nobody Wants To, But At The Point That You Die You Can Pray That You Are No Longer The Same Person. I Pray That When I Am About To Die I Will Not Be The Same Person That I Am Now.
Dying
Want
Praying
There Are No Honest Poems About Dead Women.
Honest
I Remember How Being Young And Black And Gay And Lonely Felt. A Lot Of It Was Fine, Feeling I Had The Truth And The Light And The Key, But A Lot Of It Was Purely Hell.
Lonely
Gay
Keys
The Erotic Has Often Been Misnamed By Men And Used Against Women. It Has Been Made Into The Confused, The Trivial, The Psychotic, The Plasticized Sensation.
Confused
Men
Erotic
To That Piece In Each Of Us That Refuses To Be Silent.
Pieces
Silent
Refuse
What I Leave Behind Has A Life Of Its Own.
Behinds
There's Always Someone Asking You To Underline One Piece Of Yourself - Whether It's Black, Woman, Mother, Dyke, Teacher, Etc. - Because That's The Piece That They Need To Key In To. They Want To Dismiss Everything Else.
Mother
Teacher
Keys
Art Is Not Living. It Is The Use Of Living.
Life
Art
Inspire
When I Hear The Deepest Truths I Speak Coming Out Of My Mouth Sounding Like My Mother's, Even Remembering How I Fought Against Her, I Have To Reassess Both Our Relationship As Well As The Sources Of My Knowing.
Mother
Knowing
Mouths
But, On The Other Hand, I Get Bored With Racism Too And Recognize That There Are Still Many Things To Be Said About A Black Person And A White Person Loving Each Other In A Racist Society.
Hands
White
Racism
We Have Too Often Been Expected To Speak All Things To All People And Speak Everyone Else's Position But Our Own.
People
Speak
Position
The Fear That We Cannot Grow Beyond Whatever Distortions We May Find Within Ourselves Keeps Us Docile And Loyal And Obedient, Externally Defined, And Leads Us To Accept Many Facets Of Our Own Oppression As Women.
Loyal
May
Oppression
Differences Must Be Not Merely Tolerated, But Seen As A Fund Of Necessary Polarities Between Which Our Creativity Can Spark Like A Dialectic.
Creativity
Differences
Sparks
You Cannot Use Someone Else's Fire. You Can Only Use Your Own. And In Order To Do That, You Must First Be Willing To Believe That You Have It.
Believe
Fire
Order
Nothing I Accept About Myself Can Be Used Against Me To Diminish Me. I Am Who I Am, Doing What I Came To Do, Acting Upon You Like A Drug Or A Chisel To Remind You Of Your Me-ness, As I Discover You In Myself.
Who I Am
Drug
Over You
I Started Writing Because I Had A Need Inside Of Me To Create Something That Was Not There
Writing
Needs
Caring For Myself Is Not Self-indulgence, It Is Self-preservation, And That Is An Act Of Political Warfare.
Caring
Compassion
Self
The Fact That We Are Here And That I Speak These Words Is An Attempt To Break That Silence And Bridge Some Of Those Differences Between Us, For It Is Not Difference Which Immobilizes Us, But Silence. And There Are So Many Silences To Be Broken.
Bridges
Differences
Broken
The Quality Of Light By Which We Scrutinize Our Lives Has Direct Bearing Upon The Product Which We Live, And Upon The Changes Which We Hope To Bring About Through Those Lives. It Is Within This Light That We Form Those Ideas By Which We Pursue Our Magic And Make It Realized. This Is Poetry As Illumination, For It Is Through Poetry That We Give Name To Those Ideas Which Are, Until The Poem, Nameless And Formless-about To Be Birthed, But Already Felt.
Light
Illumination
Names
Black And Third World People Are Expected To Educate White People As To Our Humanity. Women Are Expected To Educate Men. Lesbians And Gay Men Are Expected To Educate The Heterosexual World. The Oppressors Maintain Their Position And Evade Their Responsibility For Their Own Actions. There Is A Constant Drain Of Energy Which Might Be Better Used In Redefining Ourselves And Devising Realistic Scenarios For Altering The Present And Constructing The Future.
Women
Responsibility
Gay
Our Visions Begin With Our Desires.
Inspirational
Vision
Desire
Some Words Live In My Throat Breeding Like Adders. Others Know Sun Seeking Like Gypsies Over My Tongue To Explode Through My Lips
Tongue
Sun
Lips
The Failure Of Academic Feminists To Recognize Difference As A Crucial Strength Is A Failure To Reach Beyond The First Patriarchal Lesson. In Our World, Divide And Conquer Must Become Define And Empower.
Our World
Differences
Empowering
I Find I Am Constantly Being Encouraged To Pluck Out Some One Aspect Of Myself And Present This As The Meaningful Whole, Eclipsing Or Denying The Other Parts Of Self.
Meaningful
Self
Pluck
Oppression Is As American As Apple Pie.
Apples
Pie
Apple Pie
You Will Never Be Able To Defend Your City While Shouting.
Cities
Able
Shouting
Your Silence Will Not Protect You.
Inspiring
Healing
Commitment
Guilt Is Not A Response To Anger; It Is A Response To One’s Own Actions Or Lack Of Action. If It Leads To Change Then It Can Be Useful, Since It Is Then No Longer Guilt But The Beginning Of Knowledge. Yet All Too Often, Guilt Is Just Another Name For Impotence, For Defensiveness Destructive Of Communication; It Becomes A Device To Protect Ignorance And The Continuation Of Things The Way They Are, The Ultimate Protection For Changelessness.
Communication
Ignorance
Names
I Have Come To Believe Over And Over Again That What Is Most Important To Me Must Be Spoken, Made Verbal And Shared, Even At The Risk Of Having It Bruised Or Misunderstood. That The Speaking Profits Me, Beyond Any Other Effect....what I Most Regretted Were My Silences. Of What Had I Ever Been Afraid? ...death On The Other Hand, Is The Final Silence...my Silences Had Not Protected Me. Your Silences Will Not Protect You.
Believe
Hands
Silence
And When The Sun Rises We Are Afraid It Might Not Remain When The Sun Sets We Are Afraid It Might Not Rise In The Morning When Our Stomachs Are Full We Are Afraid Of Indigestion When Our Stomachs Are Empty We Are Afraid We May Never Eat Again When We Are Loved We Are Afraid Love Will Vanish When We Are Alone We Are Afraid Love Will Never Return And When We Speak We Are Afraid Our Words Will Not Be Heard Nor Welcomed But When We Are Silent We Are Still Afraid So It Is Better To Speak Remembering We Were Never Meant To Survive
Hope
Morning
Fear
To Face The Realities Of Our Lives Is Not A Reason For Despair-despair Is A Tool Of Your Enemies. Facing The Realities Of Our Lives Gives Us Motivation For Action. For You Are Not Powerless... You Know Why The Hard Questions Must Be Asked. It Is Not Altruism, It Is Self-preservation-survival.
Motivation
Reality
Self
I Agreed To Take Part In A New York University Institute For Humanities Conference A Year Ago. . . .
New York
Heterosexuality Is
Years
Tomorrow Belongs To Those Of Us Who Conceive Of It As Belonging To Everyone; Who Lend The Best Of Ourselves To It, And With Joy.
Future
Joy
Tomorrow
I Can't Really Define It In Sexual Terms Alone Although Our Sexuality Is So Energizing Why Not Enjoy It Too?
Why Not
Literature
Sexuality
What Is There Possibly Left For Us To Be Afraid Of, After We Have Dealt Face To Face With Death And Not Embraced It? Once I Accept The Existence Of Dying As A Life Process, Who Can Ever Have Power Over Me Again?
Dying
Faces
Accepting
I Am My Best Work - A Series Of Road Maps, Reports, Recipes, Doodles, And Prayers From The Front Lines.
Inspirational
Prayer
Maps
The Speaking Will Get Easier And Easier. And You Will Find You Have Fallen In Love With Your Own Vision, Which You May Never Have Realized You Had. And You Will Lose Some Friends And Lovers, And Realize You Don't Miss Them. And New Ones Will Find You And Cherish You. And At Last You'll Know With Surpassing Certainty That Only One Thing Is More Frightening Than Speaking Your Truth. And That Is Not Speaking.
Love You
Creativity
Missing
… Our Sons Must Become Men – Such Men As We Hope Our Daughters, Born And Unborn, Will Be Pleased To Live Among. Our Sons Will Not Grow Into Women. Their Way Is More Difficult Than That Of Our Daughters, For They Must Move Away From Us, Without Us. Hopefully Ours Have What They Have Learned From Us, And A Howness To Forge Into Their Own Image.
Daughter
Moving
Son
All Writers Have Periods When They Stop Writing, When They Cannot Write, And This Is Always Painful And Terrible Because Writing Is Like Breathing.
Writing
Breathing
Painful
If What We Need To Dream, To Move Our Spirits Most Deeply And Directly Toward And Through Promise, Is Discounted As A Luxury, Then We Give Up The Core -- The Fountain -- Of Our Power, Our Womanness; We Give Up The Future Of Our Worlds. (from "poetry Is Not A Luxury")
Dream
Giving Up
Moving
There Is No Hierarchy Of Oppressions
Hierarchy
Oppression
... It Is Not Difference Which Immobilizes Us, But Silence.
Differences
Silence
Hopefully, We Can Learn From The 60s That We Cannot Afford To Do Our Enemies Work By Destroying Each Other.
Enemy
Destroying
Hopefully
There Are Many Lesbians And Gay Men Trapped By Their Fear Into Silence And Invisibility, And They Exist In A Dim Valley Of Terror Wearing Nooses Of Conformity.
Gay
Men
Silence
I Am Deliberate And Afraid Of Nothing.
Inspirational
Life
Inspiring
I Soon Discovered That If You Keep Your Mouth Shut, People Are Apt To Believe You Know Everything, And They Begin To Feel Freer And Freer To Tell You Anything, Anxious To Show That They Know Something, Too.
Believe
People
Mouths
It's Possible To Take That As A Personal Metaphor And Then Multiply It To A People, A Race, A Sex, A Time. If We Can Keep This Thing Going Long Enough, If We Can Survive And Teach What We Know, We'll Make It.
Sex
Race
Long
Battling Racism And Battling Heterosexism And Battling Apartheid Share The Same Urgency Inside Me As Battling Cancer.
Cancer
Racism
Justice
Well, I Do Not Want To Be Tolerated, Nor Misnamed. I Want To Be Recognized.
Want
If Our History Has Taught Us Anything, It Is That Action For Change Directed Against The External Conditions Of Our Oppressions Is Not Enough.
Taught Us
Action
Oppression
We Must Constantly Encourage Ourselves And Each Other To Attempt The Heretical Actions That Our Dreams Imply And So Many Of Our Old Ideas Disparage.
Dream
Ideas
Action
Every Black Woman In America Lives Her Life Somewhere Along A Wide Curve Of Ancient And Unexpressed Angers.
Curves
America
Black
Poetry Is The Way We Help Give Name To The Nameless So It Can Be Thought. The Farthest Horizons Of Our Hopes And Fears Are Cobbled By Our Poems, Carved From The Rock Experiences Of Our Daily Lives.
Rocks
Names
Giving
It Is Axiomatic That If We Do Not Define Ourselves For Ourselves, We Will Be Defined By Others-for Their Use And To Our Detriment.
Use
Defined
Ifs
For Women, The Need And Desire To Nurture Each Other Is Not Pathological But Redemptive, And It Is Within That Knowledge That Our Real Power Is Rediscovered. It Is This Real Connection, Which Is So Feared By A Patriarchal World.
Real
Desire
Connections
Perhaps...i Am The Face Of One Of Your Fears. Because I Am A Woman, Because I Am Black, Because I Am A Lesbian, Because I Am Myself--a Black Woman Warrior Poet Doing My Work--come To Ask You, Are You Doing Yours?
Warrior
Black
Faces
The Sixties Were Characterized By A Heady Belief In Instantaneous Solutions.
Literature
Belief
Instantaneous
When We Define Ourselves, When I Define Myself, The Place In Which I Am Like You And The Place In Which I Am Not Like You, I'm Not Excluding You From The Joining - I'm Broadening The Joining.
Joining
Like You
Guilt Is Only Another Way Of Avoiding Informed Action.
Guilt
Way
Action
Those Of Us Forged In The Crucibles Of Difference Know That Survival Is Not An Academic Skill.
Skills
Differences
Crucible
It Is Learning How To Stand Alone, Unpopular And Sometimes Reviled, And How To Make Common Cause With Those Other Identified As Outside The Structures, In Order To Define And Seek A World In Which We Can All Flourish. It Is Learning How To Take Our Differences And Make The Strengths. For The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master's House.
Order
Differences
House
Institutionalized Rejection Of Differences Is An Absolute Necessity In A Profit Economy Which Needs Outsiders As Surplus People. As Members Of Such An Economy, We Have All Been Programmed To Respond To The Human Differences Between Us With Fear And Loathing And To Handle That Difference In One Of Three Ways: Ignore It, And If That Is Not Possible, Copy It If We Think It Is Dominant, Or Destroy It If We Think It Is Subordinate.
Thinking
Differences
People
We Are Powerful Because We Have Survived
Powerful
Survived
It's A Struggle But That's Why We Exist, So That Another Generation Of Lesbians Of Color Will Not Have To Invent Themselves, Or Their History, All Over Again.
Struggle
Color
Generations
Attend Me, Hold Me In Your Muscular Flowering Arms, Protect Me From Throwing Any Part Of Myself Away.
Arms
Throwing
Hold Me
...and That Visibility Which Makes Us Most Vulnerable Is That Which Also Is The Source Of Our Greatest Strength.
Inspirational
Visibility
Vulnerable
Some Problems We Share As Women, Some We Do Not. You [white Women] Fear Your Children Will Grow Up To Join The Patriarchy And Testify Against You; We Fear Our Children Will Be Dragged From A Car And Shot Down In The Street, And You Will Turn Your Backs On The Reasons They Are Dying.
Children
Growing Up
White
The Difference Between Poetry And Rhetoric Is Being Ready To Kill Yourself Instead Of Your Children.
Children
Differences
Poetry
For We Have Built Into All Of Us, Old Blueprints Of Expectation And Response, Old Structures Of Oppression And These Must Be Altered At The Same Time That We Alter The Living Condition Which Are The Result Of Those Structures. For The Master's Tool Will Never Dismantle The Master's House.
Expectations
House
Tools
Raising Black Children-female And Male-in The Mouth Of A Racist, Sexist, Suicidal Dragon Is Perilous And Chancy. If They Cannot Love And Resist At The Same Time, They Will Probably Not Survive.
Children
Suicidal
Dragons
Without Community, There Is No Liberation...but Community Must Not Mean A Shedding Of Our Differences, Nor The Pathetic Pretense That These Differences Do Not Exist.
Mean
Differences
Community
The Love Expressed Between Women Is Particular And Powerful Because We Have Had To Love In Order To Live; Love Has Been Our Survival.
Powerful
Order
Survival
Next Time, Ask: What's The Worst That Will Happen? Then Push Yourself A Little Further Than You Dare.
Women Empowerment
Littles
Next
There Is No Thing As A Single-issue Struggle Because We Do Not Live Single-issue Lives.
Struggle
Issues
Feminism
Wherever The Bird With No Feet Flew, She Found Trees With No Limbs.
Feet
Bird
Tree
I Have Suckled The Wolf's Lip Of Anger And I Have Used It For Illumination, Laughter, Protection, Fire In Places Where There Was No Light, No Food, No Sisters, No Quarter.
Laughter
Anger
Fire
Only By Learning To Live In Harmony With Your Contradictions Can You Keep It All Afloat.
Inspiring
Harmony
Contradiction
Afraid Is A Country With No Exit Visas.
Country
Fear
Exit
Black Writers, Of Whatever Quality, Who Step Outside The Pale Of What Black Writers Are Supposed To Write About, Or Who Black Writers Are Supposed To Be, Are Condemned To Silences In Black Literary Circles That Are As Total And As Destructive As Any Imposed By Racism.
Writing
Circles
Racism
I Learned So Much From Listening To People. And All I Knew Was, The Only Thing I Had Was Honesty And Openness.
Honesty
People
Listening
... Poetry Is Not A Luxury. It Is A Vital Necessity Of Our Existence. It Forms The Quality Of The Light Within Which We Predicate Our Hopes And Dreams Toward Survival And Change, First Made Into Language, Then Into Idea, Then Into More Tangible Action. Poetry Is The Way We Help Give Name To The Nameless So It Can Be Thought. The Farthest Horizons Of Our Hopes And Fears Are Cobbled By Our Poems, Carved From The Rock Experiences Of Our Daily Lives.
Dream
Names
Ideas
Guilt Is Not A Response To Anger; It Is A Response To One's Own Actions Or Lack Of Action.
Guilt
Action
Response
Of All The Art Forms, Poetry Is The Most Economical. It Is The One Which Is The Most Secret, Which Requires The Least Physical Labor, The Least Material, And The One Which Can Be Done Between Shifts, In The Hospital Pantry, On The Subway, And On Scraps Of Surplus Paper. ... Poetry Has Been The Major Voice Of Poor, Working Class, And Colored Women. A Room Of One's Own May Be A Necessity For Writing Prose, But So Are Reams Of Paper, A Typewriter, And Plenty Of Time.
Art
Writing
Typewriters
I Became More Courageous By Doing The Very Things I Needed To Be Courageous For-first, A Little, And Badly. Then, Bit By Bit, More And Better. Being Avidly-sometimes Annoy-ingly-curious And Persistent About Discovering How Others Were Doing What I Wanted To Do.
Firsts
Littles
Courageous
If You Do Not Learn To Hate You Will Never Be Lonely Enough To Love Easily Nor Will You Always Be Brave, Although It Does Not Grow Any Easier. Do Not Pretend To Convenient Beliefs, Even When They Are Righteous; You Will Never Be Able To Defend Your City While Shouting.
Lonely
Hate
Cities
My Fullest Concentration Of Energy Is Available To Me Only When I Integrate All The Parts Of Who I Am, Openly, Allowing Power From Particular Sources Of My Living To Flow Back And Forth Freely Through All My Different Selves, Without The Restriction Of Externally Imposed Definition.
Self
Who I Am
Energy
I Am A Post-mastectomy Woman Who Believes Our Feelings Need Voice In Order To Be Recognized, Respected, And Of Use.
Believe
Order
Voice
For Each Of Us As Women, There Is A Dark Place Within, Where Hidden And Growing Our True Spirit Rises, Beautiful And Tough As Chestnut Stanchions Against Our Nightmare Of Weakness. Within These Deep Places, Each One Of Us Holds An Incredible Reserve Of Creativity And Power, Of Unexamined And Unrecorded Emotion And Feeling
Beautiful
Creativity
Dark
In Other Words, I Would Be Giving In To A Myth Of Sameness Which I Think Can Destroy Us.
Thinking
Giving
Would Be
What Woman Here Is So Enamored Of Her Own Oppression That She Cannot See Her Heel Print Upon Another Woman's Face?
Faces
Oppression
Print
Poetry Is Not A Luxury.
Luxury
Poetry Is
For Within Livin Structures Defined By Profit, By Linear Power, By Institutional Dehumanization, Our Feelings Were Not Meant To Survive. Kept Around As Unavoidable Adjuncts Or Pleasant Pastimes, Our Feelings Were Expected To Kneel To Thought As Women Were Expected To Kneel To Men. But Women Have Survived. As Poets.
Men
Feelings
Poet
When You Reach Out And Touch Other Human Beings, It Doesn't Matter Whether You Call It Therapy Or Teaching Or Poetry.
Teaching
Matter
Reach Out
It Is Not The Destiny Of Black America To Repeat White America's Mistakes. But We Will, If We Mistake The Trappings Of Success In A Sick Society For The Signs Of A Meaningful Life.
Meaningful
Mistake
Destiny
When We Create Out Of Our Experiences, As Feminists Of Color, Women Of Color, We Have To Develop Those Structures That Will Present And Circulate Our Culture.
Color
Feminist
Culture
Pornography Is A Direct Denial Of The Power Of The Erotic, For It Represents The Suppression Of True Feeling. Pornography Emphasizes Sensation Without Feeling.
Erotic
Feelings
Denial
I Have Come To Believe That Caring For Myself Is Not Self-indulgent. Caring For Myself Is An Act Of Survival.
Believe
Caring
Self
[speaking] Is Never Without Fear; Of Visibility, Of The Harsh Light Of Scrutiny And Perhaps Judgment, Of Pain, Of Death. But We Have Lived Through All Of Those Already, In Silence, Except Death. And I Remind Myself All The Time Now, That If I Were To Have Been Born Mute, And Had Maintained An Oath Of Silence My Whole Life For Safety, I Would Still Have Suffered, And I Would Still Die.
Pain
Light
Safety
I Have Died Too Many Deaths That Were Not Mine.
Chaos
Mines
Died
But The Question Is A Matter Of The Survival And The Teaching. That's What Our Work Comes Down To. No Matter Where We Key Into It, It's The Same Work, Just Different Pieces Of Ourselves Doing It.
Teaching
Keys
Survival
The Absence Of Any Consideration Of Lesbian Consciousness Or The Consciousness Of Third World Women Leaves A Serious Gap Within This Conference. . . .
Heterosexuality Is
World
Gaps
Even The Smallest Victory Is Never To Be Taken For Granted. Each Victory Must Be Applauded.
Gratitude
Taken
Victory
I Cannot Afford To Believe That Freedom From Intolerance Is The Right Of Only One Particular Group. And I Cannot Afford To Choose Between The Fronts Upon Which I Must Battle These Forces Of Discrimination, Wherever They Appear To Destroy Me. And When They Appear To Destroy Me, It Will Not Be Long Before They Appear To Destroy You.
Believe
Long
Battle
We Are All In The Process Of Becoming.
Graduation
Becoming
Process
Who I Am Is What Fulfills Me And Fulfills The Vision I Have Of The World.
Self Esteem
Who I Am
Vision
What Are The Words You Do Not Yet Have? What Do You Need To Say? What Are The Tyrannies You Swallow Day By Day And Attempt To Make Your Own, Until You Will Sicken And Die Of Them, Still In Silence.
Fear
Silence
Needs
The True Focus Of Revolutionary Change Is Never Merely The Oppressive Situations That We Seek To Escape, But That Piece Of The Oppressor Which Is Planted Deep Within Each Of Us.
Focus
Pieces
Revolutionary
When You Are A Member Of An Out-group, And You Challenge Others With Whom You Share This Outsider Position To Examine Some Aspect Of Their Lives That Distorts Differences Between You, Then There Can Be A Great Deal Of Pain.
Pain
Differences
Challenges
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