I Learned So Much From

African Tradition Deals With Life As An Experience To Be Lived. In Many Respects, It Is Much Like The Eastern Philosophies In That We See Ourselves As A Part Of A Life Force; We Are Joined, For Instance, To The Air, To The Earth. We Are Part Of The Whole-life Process. We Live In Accordance With, In A Kind Of Correspondence With The Rest Of The World As A Whole. And Therefore Living Becomes An Experience, Rather Than A Problem, No Matter How Bad Or How Painful It May Be.

There's Always Someone Asking You To Underline One Piece Of Yourself - Whether It's Black, Woman, Mother, Dyke, Teacher, Etc. - Because That's The Piece That They Need To Key In To. They Want To Dismiss Everything Else.

I Have Suckled The Wolf's Lip Of Anger And I Have Used It For Illumination, Laughter, Protection, Fire In Places Where There Was No Light, No Food, No Sisters, No Quarter.

I Know The Anger Lies Inside Of Me Like I Know The Beat Of My Heart And The Taste Of My Spit. It Is Easier To Be Furious Than To Be Yearning. Easier To Crucify Myself In You Than To Take On The Threatening Universe Of Whiteness By Admitting That We Are Worth Wanting Each Other.

Differences Must Be Not Merely Tolerated, But Seen As A Fund Of Necessary Polarities Between Which Our Creativity Can Spark Like A Dialectic.