Thinker — The Master's Tools

Audre Lorde

1934 — 1992

American poet, essayist, and self-described Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. Born in New York City to Grenadan parents, she attended Hunter College and was in dialogue with the Combahee River Collective through the late 1970s, sharpening the argument they had stated structurally into the sharpest lines of the period.

01Self-naming

Black, lesbian, mother, poet, cancer survivor — Lorde named herself rather than accept a category built by others, and put the intersectional argument sharper than anyone in dialogue with it.

02The master's tools

The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house (1979). Build different tools.

03No single-issue lives

There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle, because we do not live single-issue lives (1982). Live the lives actually lived. The frameworks follow.