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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.

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
Sick
Mistake
Trappings
Society
Signs
Success
Repeat
White
Repeats
Black
Meaningful
America
Mistakes
Life
Destiny

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You are the one that you are looking for.
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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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When you reach out and touch other human beings, it doesn't matter whether you call it therapy or teaching or poetry.
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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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You'd better name yourself, because, if you don't others will do it for you.
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I am on the cusp of change and the curve is shifting fast.
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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.
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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.
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I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.
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Some words live in my throat breeding like adders. Others know sun seeking like gypsies over my tongue to explode through my lips
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Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
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There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
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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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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.
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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.
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We cannot settle for the pretenses of connection, or for the parodies of self-love.
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We have too often been expected to speak all things to all people and speak everyone else's position but our own.
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Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.
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Unless one lives and loves in the trenches, it is difficult to remember that the war against dehumanization is ceaseless.
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Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak.
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