A Black Lesbian Warrior Poet once said this -
"Those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference -- those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older -- know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish.
It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths.
For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change."
Audre Lorde was right then. She is right now.
Lorde wrote these words in response to feminists in 1984, but they are timeless...
They are for all of us -- right here right now - on this blog and in that messy "big tent" called the Democratic Party.
There is outrage over Stupak where there was none for Hyde...
There is impatience over DOMA but time to wait on homelessness...
There is anger over Guantanamo Bay but so little love for the Angola3...
There is racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamaphobia, xenophobia, and tactical division...
An Old White Socialist Organizer once said this -
"Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
Eugene V. Debs was right then. He is right now.
Everybody's approach to that big tent impacts all inside...
Everybody has their key issues...
Everybody has their interests...
But everybody needs Civil Rights, equal rights, health care and as the brothers and sisters have said -
"WE WANT land, bread, housing, education, clothing, justice and peace."
The cause of one, the cause of some, must be the common cause...
There can't be rights for some without rights for all...
Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere...
Divide and conquer are the master's tools...and now is long past time to play that game...
Let our differences become our strengths...
A Black Lesbian Warrior Poet once said this -
In a world of possibility for us all, our personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action....
In our world, divide and conquer
must become define and empower.
Right then. Right now...