Lorde, Audre (2007). “The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism.”
In: Sister Outsider: Essays & Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 124–33
"Women respond to racism. My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, on that anger, beneath that anger, on top of that anger, ignoring that anger, feeding upon that anger, learning to use that anger before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life." p.278
"Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we will all perish, for they serve none of our futures." p.278
"Everything can be used, except what is wasteful. You will need to remember this, when you are accused of destruction." p.280
"Anger is loaded with information and energy." p.280
"The woman who charges me with rendering her invisible by assuming that her struggles with racism are identical with my own has something to tell me that I had better learn from" p.280-281 But why use the blanket term "Woman of Colour" if it essentialises a diverse group of people?
"Mainstream communication does not want women, particularly white women, responding to racism. It wants racism to be accepted as an immutable given in the fabric of existence, like evening time or the common cold." p.281
"Any discussion among women about racism must include the recognition and the use of anger. It must be direct and creative, because it is crucial. We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor to seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honest; we must be quite serious about the choice of this topic and the angers entwined within it, because, rest assured, our opponents are quite serious about their hatred of us and of what we are trying to do here." p.281
"Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is the grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change." p.282
"Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change." p.282
"It is not the anger of other women that will destroy us, but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment." p.282
"Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action." p.282
"The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves from the manner of saying." p.283
"In the male construct of brute force, we were taught that our lives depended upon the good will of patriarchal power." p.283
"anger between peers births change, not destruction, and the discomfort and sense of loss it often causes is not fatal, but a sign of growth." p.283
"Oppressed peoples are always being asked to stretch a little more, to bridge the gap between blindness and humanity." p.284
"Women respond to racism. My response to racism is anger. I have lived with that anger, on that anger, beneath that anger, on top of that anger, ignoring that anger, feeding upon that anger, learning to use that anger before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life." p.278
"Guilt and defensiveness are bricks in a wall against which we will all perish, for they serve none of our futures." p.278
"Everything can be used, except what is wasteful. You will need to remember this, when you are accused of destruction." p.280
"Anger is loaded with information and energy." p.280
"The woman who charges me with rendering her invisible by assuming that her struggles with racism are identical with my own has something to tell me that I had better learn from" p.280-281 But why use the blanket term "Woman of Colour" if it essentialises a diverse group of people?
"Mainstream communication does not want women, particularly white women, responding to racism. It wants racism to be accepted as an immutable given in the fabric of existence, like evening time or the common cold." p.281
"Any discussion among women about racism must include the recognition and the use of anger. It must be direct and creative, because it is crucial. We cannot allow our fear of anger to deflect us nor to seduce us into settling for anything less than the hard work of excavating honest; we must be quite serious about the choice of this topic and the angers entwined within it, because, rest assured, our opponents are quite serious about their hatred of us and of what we are trying to do here." p.281
"Hatred is the fury of those who do not share our goals, and its object is death and destruction. Anger is the grief of distortions between peers, and its object is change." p.282
"Anger is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change." p.282
"It is not the anger of other women that will destroy us, but our refusals to stand still, to listen to its rhythms, to learn within it, to move beyond the manner of presentation to the substance, to tap that anger as an important source of empowerment." p.282
"Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action." p.282
"The angers between women will not kill us if we can articulate them with precision, if we listen to the content of what is said with at least as much intensity as we defend ourselves from the manner of saying." p.283
"In the male construct of brute force, we were taught that our lives depended upon the good will of patriarchal power." p.283
"anger between peers births change, not destruction, and the discomfort and sense of loss it often causes is not fatal, but a sign of growth." p.283
"Oppressed peoples are always being asked to stretch a little more, to bridge the gap between blindness and humanity." p.284
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