Out of my flesh that hungers and my mouth that knows comes the shape I am seeking for reason.
Sometimes we are blessed with being able to choose the time, and the arena, and the manner of our revolution, but more usually we must do battle where we are standing.
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.
Black women sharing close ties with each other, politically or emotionally, are not the enemies of Black men.
I can’t really define it in sexual terms alone although our sexuality is so energizing why not enjoy it too?
In other words, I would be giving in to a myth of sameness which I think can destroy us.
The sixties were characterized by a heady belief in instantaneous solutions.
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 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, 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.
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 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.
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.
Hatred is a death wish for the hated, not a life wish for anything else.
I have suckled the wolf’s lip of anger and I have used it for illumination, laughter, protection, fire in places where there was no light, no food, no sisters, no quarter.
Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.
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.
My fear of anger taught me nothing.
One pays a lot, we all pay a lot, for awareness.
Somedays, if bitterness were a whetstone, I could be sharp as grief.