Recently my class read Audre Lorde’s essay, The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House (1984). All of my students were familiar with the title phrase but only a handful knew the context let alone read the entire essay.
It’s a fun phrase and easy to apply to nearly any and every type of systemic oppression. In popular discourse we tend to say it glibly in response to any suggested attempt to dismantle a structure from the inside.
Lorde was explicit and specific, though, when introducing this concept. As a Black lesbian feminist she had growing concerns over the then-new notions of “tolerance” and the growing academization of feminism, particularly by white heterosexual women.
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