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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.

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
Heard
Read
Examine
Words
Crying
Lives
Recognize
Women
Cry
Must
Seek
Share
Responsibility

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Guilt is not a response to anger it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action.
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I realize that if I wait until I am no longer afraid to act, write, speak, be, I'll be sending messages on a Ouija board, cryptic complaints from the other side
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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. . . .
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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.
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Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.
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I am not only a casualty, I am also a warrior.
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The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.
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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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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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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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Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
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What I leave behind has a life of its own.
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Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.
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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.
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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.
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We must wake up knowing we have work to do and go to bed knowing we've done it.
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Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.
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So it is better to speak, remembering we were never meant to survive.
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I know the anger lies inside of me like I know the beat of my heart and the taste of my spit. It is easier to be furious than to be yearning. Easier to crucify myself in you than to take on the threatening universe of whiteness by admitting that we are worth wanting each other.
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Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare.
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