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Audre Lorde chose her words carefully. Her use of “master” holds clear connotations that black people are still not free and the struggle continues. You can’t t
by wayoutthere 5y ago
Audre Lorde chose her words carefully. Her use of “master” holds clear connotations that black people are still not free and the struggle continues. You can’t tear down the master’s house when you yourself are one of his tools.
It’s powerful because it’s a personal challenge in the context of white supremacy. And whenever you use the phrase, some decent percentage of your audience will be put off by it and wonder why you’re bringing race into a conversation that’s not about race. If that’s not something you want, you shouldn’t use the phrase when not talking about issues of race.
- _jal 5y agoNo, I don't fence off metaphors for exclusivity. Good ones get reused. And claiming Lorde was only talking about race is simply incorrect.
- wayoutthere 5y agoOf course she wasn’t; she’s a poet so everything she says has multiple meanings, but context matters. The issue of race and personal marginalization is inextricable from the quote. She would have used a different word than “Master” otherwise. Context crushing it this way diminishes the effectiveness of any argument you may be using it in support of. You can choose to use whatever metaphors you want, but other people will add their own context. It’s the same reason you can’t say things like “final solution” — the phrase has societal context and its use is distracting at best when used in another context.
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