The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house
Audre Lorde
:)
Audre Lorde :)
This is a short speech given in 1979 by Audre Lorde, a Black lesbian civil rights activist & poet. It is a comprehensive text, critical of racism & homophobia within feminist spaces.
A little bit of background: So, the essay we're reading is actually a speech given at a three-day conference at NYU in 1979 which was commemorating the 30th anniversary of “The Second Sex" by Simone de Beauvoir (This book is one of the catalysts of the "second wave" of feminism in the 60's). During this speech, Lorde delivers this really REALLY critical talk outlining how the conference she is speaking at was organized around white, feminist, heterosexual thinkers and how those problems scale when you look at the feminist movement as a whole.
So, after reading it a couple of times, I was like “I need context.” So, linked below is a folder with a scan of an article covering the entirety of the conference, originally printed on “Off Our Backs,” a late 70s feminist magazine. It contains the first printed copy of “The Master’s Tools” speech and a review of the overall conference. It also includes the response the conference organizer (!) has to Lorde’s critiques.
But wait, there’s more.
The version of the speech we’re reading was edited by Lorde and published in her book “Sister Outsider.” BUT!!! Somewhere really deep in the internet!! I found tapes!! From someone that actually went to the conference!!! You can actually hear Audre Lorde give the unedited speech at the conference!! Ahhh I’ve been geeking out about this lol anyway yeah the recording of the tapes is also linked.
Bonus: Audre Lorde is very very well known for her poetry. And upon reading her wiki I learned that at just 17 years old, her first poem, “Spring,” was published in the April 1951 issue of Seventeen magazine. I had to dig deep for this one. But here is a scan of this poem if you want to read it :)
Sources:
Speech/Essay - Live text generated from “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” by Audre Lorde as it appears in “Sister Outsider”
“Off Our Backs” Article Scan – ty 5ever jstor!
‘The Master’s Tools” speech LIVE at NYU, 1979 taped speech- huge huge thank you to Michelle Moravec for posting this recording to her website!
“Spring” by Audre Lorde (1951) - shout out to eBay seller brownbagjones for including a photo of the poem in the product listing for the original April 1951 issue of Seventeen magazine, in which the poem was originally printed.