Women Have The Right To Say: This

Literary History And The Present Are Dark With Silences . . . I Have Had Special Need To Learn All I Could Of This Over The Years, Myself So Nearly Remaining Mute And Having To Let Writing Die Over And Over Again In Me. These Are Not Natural Silences--what Keats Called Agonie Ennuyeuse (the Tedious Agony)--that Necessary Time For Renewal, Lying Fallow, Gestation, In The Natural Cycle Of Creation. The Silences I Speak Of Here Are Unnatural: The Unnatural Thwarting Of What Struggles To Come Into Being, But Cannot.

I Very Much Dislike The Word "race," And I Never Use It. I Use The Word "racist." Race Is Not A Fact. There Is Only One Race: Human. Skin Color Is Less Than 2 Percent Of The Dna.

And When Is There Time To Remember, To Sift, To Weigh, To Estimate, To Total?

It's Hard For Me To Talk About The Terrible Things That Have Happened In My Lifetime Because They Didn't Need To Be.

The Fact That Human Beings Do Not Put Up Forever With Misery, Humiliation, Degradation, Actual Physical Deprivation But Act Is A Fact Which Every Human Being Should Know About. We Are A Species That Makes Changes.