The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action

"What are the words you do not yet have?

What do you need to say?

What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?

Perhaps for some of you here today, I am the fact of one of your fears.

Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am lesbian, because I am myself—a Black woman warrior poet doing my work — come to ask you, are you doing yours?"

From The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action by Audre Lourde