Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves. - Audre Lorde

When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Being women together was not enough. We were different. Being gay-girls together was not enough. We were different.
Being Black together was not enough. We were different.
Being Black women together was not enough. We were different.
Being Black dykes together was not enough. We were different. Each of us had our own needs and pursuits, and many different alliances. Self-preservation warned some of us that we could not afford to settle for one easy definition, one narrow individuation of self. At the Bag, at Hunter College, uptown in Harlem, at the library, there was a piece of the real me bound in each place, and growing. It was a while before we came to realize that our place was the very house of difference rather the security of any one particular difference.

When patriarchy dismisses us, it encourages our murderers. When feminist theory dismisses us, it encourages its own demise.