gobeline’s Reviews > Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches > Status Update

“There is no such thing as a single issue struggle, we do not live single issue lives; Malcolm knew this, Martin Luther King Jr. knew this. Our struggles are particular, but we are not alone.”

“It is not anger of other women that will destroy us but our refusal to stand still to listen, to his 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.”

“Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical; it is the one which is most secret, requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper.”

“we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition; and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of silence will choke us.”

“That we not hide behind the mockery with separations that have been imposed upon us” / “and all the other endless ways that we rob ourselves of ourselves and each other”

“What are the unspoken words you have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow, day by day until you will sicken and die of them in silence.“