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The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .

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
Consciousness
Lesbian
Serious
Conferences
Within
Gaps
Women
Consideration
World
Third
Leaves
Thirds
Heterosexuality
Absence
Conference

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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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Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.
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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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We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.
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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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Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
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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. And in order to survive they must let go. This is what mothers teach — love, survival — that is, self-definition and letting go.
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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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You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
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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.
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Anger, used, does not destroy. Hatred does.
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... it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence.
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To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society
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How a diamond comes into a knot of flame How a sound comes into a word, coloured By who pays what for speaking. Some words are open. Love is a word another kind of open — As a diamond comes into a knot of flame I am black because I come from the earth's inside. Take my word for jewel in your open light.
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What I most regretted were my silences. Of what had I ever been afraid?
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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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I am a bleak heroism of words that refuse to be buried alive with the liars.
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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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We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.
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