Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the burden placed on marginalized groups to educate those in power about their humanity, emphasizing the need for self-definition and proactive change.
Audre Lorde's quote addresses the expectation that marginalized communities, such as Black individuals, women, and LGBTQ+ people, must take on the responsibility of educating more privileged groups about their experiences and humanity. This dynamic not only perpetuates oppression but also diverts energy that could be better spent on self-empowerment and active efforts to reshape society. Lorde urges these groups to focus on redefining themselves and creating practical strategies to change their circumstances rather than continuously trying to prove their worth to those who oppress them.
In practice
In a speech at a protest advocating for racial equality.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
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.
Change is only another word for growth, another synonym for learning.
You only grow by coming to the end of something and by beginning something else.
Women have been trained to speak softly and carry a lipstick. Those days are over.
We are the people that we have been waiting for and no one else is coming.
The most important factor in survival is neither intelligence nor strength but adaptability.
On those days when we're not ready to stop being offended, not ready to forgive, still determined to dish out the silent treatment, what we're actually saying is, "Thanks, but I don't want to become more like the Savior today. Maybe tomorrow, but not today." Perhaps those are the times when we need to pray the hardest, the times it becomes clear that a change in behavior is not enough--that we must have a change in nature.
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