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
Black
Literature
Define
Women
Within
Male
Attention
Males
Interest
Racism
Common
Interests
Rather
Recognize
Upon
Competition
Programmed
Moving
Move
Compete

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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 so much from listening to people. And all I knew was, the only thing I had was honesty and openness.
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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.
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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.
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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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Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
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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.
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We cannot settle for the pretenses of connection, or for the parodies of self-love.
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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 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.
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In the recognition of loving lies the answer to despair.
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If our history has taught us anything, it is that action for change directed against the external conditions of our oppressions is not enough.
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What I leave behind has a life of its own.
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Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.
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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.
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Our feelings are our most genuine paths to knowledge.
Audre Lorde