I adore this Audre Lorde quote for more reasons than I am able to recount today. I am however, able to state one reason why it speaks to me so loudly. It may even be the most important reason. I have deliberately searched out, traveled through cracks and crevices; through darkened tunnels and by symbolically traveling on my stomach over miles and miles of rocky and other sharp objected terrain in order to discover the monster, the victimizer, the abuser, and the oppressor within. AND...even though I have sought out and found my treasure I have also discovered it is unlike any other treasure that could possibly be out there. That is because the more deeply I look, the more inner monster, victimizer, abuser and oppressor I find inside myself. So, effectively, the search never ends.
There are solid and progressive social justice activists I know whom I think truly believe they, through tireless years of exhausting work and dedicated effort, have become aware of every single form, or at least a very impressive collection of knowledge about a very significantly large base of information about all manner of macro and micro aggressions, every form and sub-form of privilege out there. They believe they have discovered every way, shape, and form of oppression, marginalization, disenfranchisement, all "isms" and phobias that are out there in the social universe to be unearthed. They have unearthed all the trendy and hip and sectarian and multicultural ways of slurring any group of people, stigmatizing any group of people, otherizing any group of people, slyly or even subconsciously disempowering another, intentionally or unintentionally throwing shade on another person or group of people, dishonoring another person, engaging any kind of power dynamic with another person, and subjecting a person to any of a long list of explicit and implicit forms of injustice. Most of these people are not outwardly proud of their achievement.
However, they have made the terrible mistake of believing, unless some new form of externally motivated expression of oppression is invented, which is entirely possible in this world we live in, their work is mostly done. They however, are dead wrong. And they are dead wrong because they have never seriously considered looking inward to discover, to find, to seek out, to gaze upon, to stare at, to shake and tremble before the monster, the victimizer, the abuser, and the oppressor within. And more interestingly, they have never really considered the possibility that even though they are in near complete denial about the existence of the oppressor within, many of us who have been around them have experienced first hand their oppressor within. We have seen it on display and vividly so. Some of us have even tried to alert them to the sheer power of it. But alas, they believe their vocation in life is merely to uncover the monsters and victimizers, and abusers, and oppressors that lie without. They, like me, could spend the rest of their lives investigating the oppressor that is "planted deep" within them and like me, come to their day of death and returning to dust and still not uncover even a fraction of that particular beast. And that is the mother fuckin' truth.
And it is because I personally know such people and see them operating in the world and because I love and care deeply for them that this Audre Lorde quote must be made visible by me at every opportunity that makes itself available...
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