Quote

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.

Audre Lorde

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Audre Lorde
Age: 58 †
Born: 1934
Born: February 18
Died: 1992
Died: November 17
Essayist
Feminist
Librarian
Novelist
Poet
University Teacher
Writer
New York City
New York
Audre Geraldine Lorde
Upon
Competition
Programmed
Moving
Move
Compete
Black
Literature
Define
Women
Within
Male
Attention
Males
Interest
Racism
Common
Interests
Rather
Recognize

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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.
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Art is not living. It is the use of living. The artist has the ability to take the living and use it in a certain way and produce art.
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It does not pay to cherish symbols when the substance lies so close at hand.
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You will never be able to defend your city while shouting.
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Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.
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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.
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If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.
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I am a Black Lesbian Feminist Warrior Poet Mother, stronger for all my identities, and I am indivisible.
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Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
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Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.
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Institutionalized rejection of difference is an absolute necessity in a profit economy which needs outsiders as surplus people.
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The white fathers told us: I think, therefore I am. The black goddess within each of us - the poet - whispers in our dreams: I feel, therefore I can be free.
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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.
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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.
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Women are powerful and dangerous.
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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.
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