Thread by @CominternQueer

Audre Lorde’s “The masters tools will never bring down the masters house” gotta be one of the most misquoted and misapplied quotes of all time.

🧵 (1/16)

First and foremost, Audre Lorde was a self avowed communist. She spent time in the Soviet Union and wrote an essay about it. She was a feminist but her analysis and critique of society, culture, and the state was always rooted in dialectics. (2/16)

In her essay “The Master’s Tools,” Audre critiques the racist, homophobic, & imperialist white feminist movement of the 1970s. She’s blasting white women clamoring for freedom from patriarchy while embracing racism, cissexism, homophobia, & western exceptionalism. (3/16)

When she wrote (or rather said) the eponymous quote, she was demanding an acknowledgement that we cannot use the ideological tools of the state to dismantle patriarchy. (4/16)

It meant that the feminist movement wouldn’t succeed without integrating and empowering Black and Third World, lesbian, and trans women to lead the movement. A critique we can find unity with today. (5/16)

She in no way meant we couldn’t use the state against the state, an anarchist line of thinking espoused time and time again in the modern day abolitionist movement and in liberation circles (6/16)

You’ll often hear: “we can’t legitimize the state and institutions we seek to abolish,” or “we don’t recognize the state as a valid entity to govern our lives.”

While I can agree in principle, how is that applicable our material work to…abolish the state? (7/16)

How do you not legitimize a state that wields power over you? What happens when you try to form autonomous communities? When you try to mobilize your own police forces, or you try to exercise political rights that are not state sanctioned? The state packs you the fuck up. (8/16)

We’re forced to participate in the very system oppressing us. We lack the political power to overthrow capitalism right now bc we are weak & divided as a class. We are not organized enough for revolutionary class consciousness and self-determination for oppressed nations (9/16)

Until the multi-national/ethnic/racial/identitied working class unites with the oppressed nations within the US, we won’t be strong enough to overthrow our oppressors. So what do we do in the meantime? (10/16)

We organize. We demand community control of the police. We demand trade unions. We demand legislation to protect our political rights. We demand healthcare for all and open borders. We join revolutionary parties and seek resources for mutual aid. (11/16)

We organize using the tools of capitalism for its eventual demise, because we cannot organize otherwise. We can’t tear down the barriers that prevent us from uniting if we aren’t building relationships and engaged in political struggle with the people around us. (12/16)

We are just sitting around twiddling our thumbs, talking about theories of change, and waiting for a revolution that will never come if we aren’t the ones to go into the streets, organize our communities, and demand an end to the tyranny of the oligarchic elite. (13/16)

We have to be able to turn our theories into reality. The only way to do that is through organizing. Our organizing must be committed to learning, to practice and to understanding the conditions that we face and *how* we tear them down. (14/16)

So yes, the state must be used to dismantle the state. Our focus must be on POWER. We need a change in the relationship of power. We must have power to form a system that puts our interests as workers and oppressed nations FIRST (15/16)

So, if you are gonna quote Audre, don’t do my girl dirty. Quote her shit right. 🤞🏾🤞🏾(16/16)

You can read “The Master’s Tools” speech/essay here: collectiveliberation.org/wp-content/upl…