"Any discussion among women about racism must include the recognition and the use of anger. This discussion must be direct and creative because it is crucial. We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honesty; we must be quite serious about the choice of this topic and the angers entwined within it because, rest assured, our opponents are quite serious about their hatred of us and of what we are trying to do here. And while we scrutinize the often painful face of each other’s anger, please remember that it is not our anger which makes me caution you to lock your doors at night and not to wander the streets of Hartford alone. It is the hatred which lurks in those streets, that urge to destroy us all if we truly work for change rather than merely indulge in academic rhetoric. This hatred and our anger are very different. Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is a grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Memoirists from the United StatesPolitical authors from the United StatesWomen academics from the United States20th-century poets from the United StatesNovelists from New York City
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Audre_Lorde
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Audre Lorde
Audre Geraldine Lorde (18 February 1934 – 17 November 1992) was a black writer, feminist, womanist, lesbian, and civil rights activist. Her poems and prose largely deal with issues related to civil rights, feminism, and the exploration of black female identity.
199 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Audre Lorde →
Related Quotes
"I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained. Nor is any one of you."
"When I speak of the erotic, then I speak of it as an assertion of the life force of women; of that creative energy em…"
"I stared at this earnest young black man for a moment. Suddenly my hair became very political. Waves of horror washed…"
"Feminism must be on the cutting edge of real social change if it is to survive as a movement in any particular country."
"We are jointly responsible for the care and raising of the young, since that they be raised is a function, ultimately…"
"Overextending myself is not stretching myself. I had to accept how difficult it is to monitor the difference. Necessa…"
"Each time you love, love as deeply as if it were forever / Only, nothing is eternal."
"I have always wanted to be both man and woman, to incorporate the strongest and richest parts of my mother and father…"
"Being women together was not enough. We were different. Being gay-girls together was not enough. We were different. B…"
"I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own."