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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.

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
Others
Axiomatic
Detriment
Define
Defined
Use

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What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heel print upon another woman's face?
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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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The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the consciousness of third world women leaves a serious gap within this conference. . . .
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Your silence will not protect you.
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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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Divide and conquer must become define and empower.
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Those of us forged in the crucibles of difference know that survival is not an academic skill.
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Our visions begin with our desires.
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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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We are powerful because we have survived
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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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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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Whenever a conscious Black woman raises her voice on issues central to her existence, somebody is going to call her strident, because they don't want to hear about it, nor us. I refuse to be silenced and I refuse to be trivialized, even if I do not say what I have to say perfectly.
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Well, I do not want to be tolerated, nor misnamed. I want to be recognized.
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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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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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pornography is a direct denial of the power of the erotic, for it represents the suppression of true feeling. Pornography emphasizes sensation without feeling.
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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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One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
Audre Lorde
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But, on the other hand, I get bored with racism too and recognize that there are still many things to be said about a Black person and a White person loving each other in a racist society.
Audre Lorde