Because the machine will try to grind you into dust anyway, whether or not we speak. We can sit in our corners, mute forever… and we will still be no less afraid.
We can learn to work and speak when we are afraid in the same way we have learned to work and speak when we are tired. For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.
Audre Lorde
“The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action”
Sister Outsider