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.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the pressure to conform to a single aspect of one's identity while disregarding the complexity of the whole person.
Audre Lorde's quote emphasizes how society often prompts individuals to define themselves by a singular identity trait, such as race, gender, or role, while ignoring the multifaceted nature of a person. This pressure can lead to feelings of being diminished and misunderstood, as it reduces the richness of one’s experiences and attributes to a mere label that others can consume or utilize for their own understanding.
In practice
In a speech about diversity and inclusion, you could use this quote to highlight the importance of recognizing the whole person.
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.
The erotic is a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings.
Growing up, I knew I was different. But I didn't know what it meant to be Aboriginal. I just knew that I had a really big, extended family. I was taught nothing about who we were or where we came from.
It was very hard for me, for most of my life, to feel American, or call myself American, and that is a very complicated topic that would require a very long conversation.
I must identify myself with Africa. Then I will have an identity.
The American society around me looked at me and saw Japanese. Then, when I was 19, I went to Japan for the first time. And suddenly - what a shock - I realized I wasn't Japanese; they saw me as American. It was an enormous relief. Now I just appreciate being exactly in the middle.
Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer.
You're trying to grow up, and you don't want to be like your parents, and that gets mixed up with being Korean... They brought their values from Korea, and I accepted them because I didn't know anything more. But as I grow older, I feel more Korean every year; it's very strange.
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