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.
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.
This kind of action is a prevalent error among oppressed peoples. It is based upon the false notion that there is only a limited and particular amount of freedom that must be divided up between us, wi...
The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us, and which knows only...
The breakdown of mummies and daddies was an important part of lesbian relationships in the Bagatelle...For some of us, however, role-playing reflected all the depreciating attitudes toward women which...
I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are...
Decisions to cut aid for the terminally ill, for the elderly, for dependent children, for food stamps, even school lunches, are being made by men with full stomachs who live in comfortable houses with...
In our work and in our living, we must recognize that difference is a reason for celebration and growth, rather than a reason for destruction.
Your silence will not protect you.
We are all more blind to what we have than to what we have not.
Too often, we pour the energy needed for recognizing and exploring difference into pretending those differences are insurmountable barriers, or that they do not exist at all.
In a paradoxical sense, once I accepted my position as different from the larger society as well as from any single-sub-society--black or gay--I felt I didn't have to try so hard. To be accepted. To l...
I have died too many deaths that were not mine.
For those of us who live at the shorelinestanding upon the constant edges of decisioncrucial and alonefor those of us who cannot indulgethe passing dreams of choicewho love in doorways coming and goin...
The failure of academic feminists to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empow...
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.
Nothing I accept about myself can be used against me to diminish me.
The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house
The terror of Black Lesbians is buried in that deep inner place where we have been taught to fear all difference—to kill or ignore it. Be assured: loving women is not a communicable disease. You don’t...
Oppressed peoples are always being asked to stretch a little more, to bridge the gap between blindness and humanity.