I Cannot Shut You Out The Way

For 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 That Silence Will Choke Us.

Those Of Us Forged In The Crucibles Of Difference Know That Survival Is Not An Academic Skill.

Nothing I Accept About Myself Can Be Used Against Me To Diminish Me.

Without Community, There Is No Liberation.

When I Speak Of The Erotic, Then I Speak Of It As An Assertion Of The Life Force Of Women; Of That Creative Energy Empowered, The Knowledge And Use Of Which We Are Now Reclaiming In Our Language, Our History, Our Dancing, Our Loving, Our Work, Our Lives.