I am a post-mastectomy woman who believes our feelings need voice in order to be recognized, respected, and of use.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of expressing one's emotions and experiences for validation and healing.
Audre Lorde, a prominent feminist and activist, highlights that the experiences and feelings of those who have gone through challenging situations, such as post-mastectomy women, deserve to be expressed and listened to. By voicing these feelings, individuals not only seek recognition and respect but also empower themselves and others, turning personal struggles into a source of strength and communal understanding.
In practice
During a support group meeting for cancer survivors to highlight the importance of sharing experiences.
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.
We took this challenge before our Lord and our conscience, and it must be done, because this man, Hitler, he is the ultimate evil.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
For without belittling the courage with which men have died, we should not forget those acts of courage with which men have lived.
The oppressed never free themselves - they do not have the necessary strengths.
Humanity has won its battle. Liberty now has a country.
In many ways, my decision to come out changed the course not only of my personal life but of my professional one as well.
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