As a Black lesbian feminist comfortable with the many different ingredients of my identity, and a woman commited to racial and sexual freedom from oppression, I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of mysef and present this as a meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self. But this is a destructive and fragmenting way to live. My fullest concentration of energy is available to me only when I integrate all the parts of who I am, openly, allowing power from particular sources of my living to flow back and forth freely through all my different selves, without the restrictions of externally imposed definition. Only then can I bring myself and my energies as a whole to the service of those struggles which I embrace as part of my living.
— Audre Lorde, from her essay Age, Race, Class and Sex: Women Redefining Difference
(A) Audre Lorde is kind of a supreme boss. I credit (E) with introducing me to her excellence.
(via sonnateers365)