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" In discussions around the hiring and firing of Black faculty at universities, the charge is frequently heard that Black women are more easily hired than are Black men. "

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" It's possible to take that as a personal metaphor and then multiply it to a people, a race, a sex, a time. If we can keep this thing going long enough, if we can survive and teach what we know, we'll make it. "

Audre Lorde

Long

People

Race

" Poetry is not only dream and vision; it is the skeleton architecture of our lives. It lays the foundations for a future of change, a bridge across our fears of what has never been before. "

" Our visions begin with our desires. "

" There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else. "

" Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now. "

" Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism. "

" I can't really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too? "

" There are lesbians, God knows... if you came up through lesbian circles in the forties and fifties in New York... who were not feminist and would not call themselves feminists. "

Audre Lorde

You

God

" The quality of light by which we scrutinize our lives has direct bearing upon the product which we live, and upon the changes which we hope to bring about through those lives. "

" But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women. "

" 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. "

" I would like to do another piece of fiction dealing with a number of issues: Lesbian parenting, the 1960's, and interracial relationships in the Lesbian and Gay community. "

" When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid. "

" Attend me, hold me in your muscular flowering arms, protect me from throwing any part of myself away. "

Audre Lorde

Myself

Protect

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Your silence will not protect you. "

" Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in sexual terms. "

" The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

Audre Lorde

Black

Women

" Only by learning to live in harmony with your contradictions can you keep it all afloat. "

" The learning process is something you can incite, literally incite, like a riot. "

" The sharing of joy, whether physical, emotional, psychic, or intellectual, forms a bridge between the sharers which can be the basis for understanding much of what is not shared between them, and lessens the threat of their difference. "

" But the question is a matter of the survival and the teaching. That's what our work comes down to. No matter where we key into it, it's the same work, just different pieces of ourselves doing it. "

" In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy us. "

Audre Lorde

Destroy

Giving

" The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions. "