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...
I began to ask each time: "
What's the worst
that could happen to me
if I tell this truth?"
Unlike women in other
countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed,
"disappeared" or run off the road at night.
Our speaking out will irritate
some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some
dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to
speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is
altered forever.
Next time, ask: What's the worst that will
happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you
start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put
you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end.
And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have
fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized
you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you
don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you
will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I
think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of
your revolution."
And at last you'll know with surpassing
certainty that only one thing is MORE frightening than speaking your
truth. And that is NOT speaking.”
~ Audre Lorde
A Site For People Who Value Independent Black Women Who Need Equality Without Sameness, along with Interdependence, Reciprocation, and Respect From Those That Love Them In Order To Thrive.... Black American Women have always been feminists. It's just that they were called "having an attitude" instead of "feminists"
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