To encourage excellence is to go beyond the encouraged mediocrity of our society

If you can't change reality, change your perceptions of it.

But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.

When we create out of our experiences, as feminists of color, women of color, we have to develop those structures that will present and circulate our culture.

But in a crunch, when all our asses are in the sling, it looks like it is easier to deal with the samenesses. When we deal with sameness only, we develop weapons that we use against each other when the differences become apparent. And we wipe each other out - Black men and women can wipe each other out - far more effectively than outsiders do.

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

When I hear the deepest truths I speak coming out of my mouth sounding like my mother's, even remembering how I fought against her, I have to reassess both our relationship as well as the sources of my knowing.