There Is No Hierarchy of Oppressions by Audre Lorde

So often, especially in the past month, I have found that others, wiser and more articulate than I, have thought some of the same thoughts I have and gone further with them than I've ever managed to. In a recent discussion I read this (*waves gratefully to sparkymonster*), and I wish I could send knowledge of it back in time to myself on November 5, 2008. But then Audre Lorde is always worth reading.

I'm posting this for myself, but also for many people who'd never read it: I'm posting it for all the Black people I've known who were homophobic, and for all the people who were furiously racist in the wake of Proposition 8's passing. (This is me not typing a list of names, admire my restraint.) But I'm also posting it for those who will read it, who know that setting Black people and LGBT people at each other's throats is a weapon of those who would see us all as second class citizens.

And I'm posting it for the children I work with and live with, most of all.

( I simply do not believe that one aspect of myself can possibly profit from the oppression of any other part of my identity. I know that my people cannot possibly profit from the oppression of any other group which seeks the right to peaceful existence. )