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bd50d47
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"I was going to die, sooner or later, whether or not I had even spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silences will not protect you.... What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language." I began to ask each time: "What's the worst that could happen to me if I tell this truth?" Unlike women in other countries, our breaking silence is unlikely to have us jailed, "disappeared" or run off the road at night. Our speaking out will irritate some people, get us called bitchy or hypersensitive and disrupt some dinner parties. And then our speaking out will permit other women to speak, until laws are changed and lives are saved and the world is altered forever.
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silence
truth
speaking-out
revolution
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Audre Lorde |
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16d5fc3
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For those of us who live at the shoreline standing upon the constant edges of decision crucial and alone for those of us who cannot indulge the passing dreams of choice who love in doorways coming and going in the hours between dawns looking inward and outward at once before and after seeking a now that can breed futures like bread in our children's mouths so their dreams will not reflect the death of ours: For those of us who were imprinted with fear like a faint line in the center of our foreheads learning to be afraid with our mother's milk for by this weapon this illusion of some safety to be found the heavy-footed hoped to silence us For all of us this instant and this triumph We were never meant to survive. And when the sun rises we are afraid it might not remain when the sun sets we are afraid it might not rise in the morning when our stomachs are full we are afraid of indigestion when our stomachs are empty we are afraid we may never eat again when we are loved we are afraid love will vanish when we are alone we are afraid love will never return and when we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are still afraid So it is better to speak remembering we were never meant to survive.
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silence
poetry
life
speaking-out
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Audre Lorde |
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866e7cf
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My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences.
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illness
words
silence
feminism
women
truth
speaking-out
differences
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Audre Lorde |
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16454f6
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This is slavery, not to speak one's thought.
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speaking-out
freedom-of-speech
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Euripides |
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66cf88a
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Choosing with integrity means finding ways to speak up that honor your reality, the reality of others, and your willingness to meet in the center of that large field. It's hard sometimes.
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integrity
reality
speaking-up
speaking-out
speaking
choose
honor
voice
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Terry Tempest Williams |
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af7a205
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WHAT ARE THE CONSEQUENCES when we go against our instincts? What are the consequences of not speaking out? What are the consequences of guilt, shame, and doubt?
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doubt
speaking-out
instinct
shame
consequences
guilt
instincts
voice
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Terry Tempest Williams |
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54ef671
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We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired.
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work
speaking-out
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Audre Lorde |
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22edbaf
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There are no new pains.
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speaking-out
the-master-s-tools
silencing
|
Audre Lorde |