Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the interconnectedness of identity and oppression among marginalized communities.
Audre Lorde's quote speaks to the intersectionality of race and sexual orientation, highlighting that experiences of oppression are not isolated to one aspect of identity. She argues that attacks on any marginalized group resonate with other groups facing similar struggles, underscoring the idea that solidarity is crucial in the fight against discrimination, and that understanding the complexity of identity is essential in addressing social justice issues.
In practice
During a pride event, one might use this quote to highlight the importance of intersectionality in LGBTQ+ advocacy.
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.
Our dead are never dead to us until we have forgotten them: they can be injured by us, they can be wounded; they know all our penitence, all our aching sense that their place is empty, all the kisses we bestow on the smallest relic of their presence.
I believe in the brotherhood of all men, but I don't believe in wasting brotherhood on anyone who doesn't want to practice it with me. Brotherhood is a two-way street.
Marriage made more sense when it was indissoluble. It's the woman trying to cope with the strains of a one-parent family who will suffer most from the relaxation of the divorce laws.
I didn't want to be alone, but I had to learn that the dimensions of my feelings are too violent. I had to learn this.
Meg was going to have to learn for herself what Laurie had figured out over the summer - that it was better to leave well enough alone, to avoid unnecessary encounters with the people you'd left behind, to not keep poking at that sore tooth with the tip of your tongue. Not because you didn't love them anymore, but because you did, and because that love was useless now, just another dull ache in your phantom limb.
I know what it's like when you are a refugee, living on the mercy of others and having to adjust.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.