As Simple as This: “Your Silence Will Not Protect You”–Audre Lorde

Watercolor, ink, gouache on paper

This piece was inspired by a guiding light, one who’s helped me through creativity, through the world, and through being a woman, being a human being. This guiding light is Audre Lorde.

Today, while observing the current that brought my life to this moment, I settled on something that’s made my life possible and painful and beautiful: our truths. Not to be confused with capital T Truth (which I think is a fallacy unless it’s scientific–perhaps more on that some other time), these are the undoubtable truths that are our perspectives.

All we can do is tell our truths; and let our truths out because our truths must be expressed to be shared. And if we are going to progress as a culture and as people, we need these perspectives, and we need to speak and listen. That is where Audre Lorde comes in.

In Sister Outsider, a collection of Lorde’s speeches and essays, is a perspective that is intelligent as it is soulful, painful as it is comforting. In a quote from her paper “The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”, Lorde expressed everything I’ve been pondering in just six words:

“Your silence will not protect you.”

121 days done, 244 to go.