Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise Quotes

“To cope with hurt and control my fears, I grew a thick skin. Oh, the many names of power - pride, arrogance, control. I am not the frozen snow queen but a flesh and blood woman with perhaps too loving a heart, one easily hurt.”
― Michelle Cliff, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise

“In America: each year the day before school after summer vacation I sat on my bed touching my notebooks, pencils, ruler-holding the stern and sweet smelling brown oxfords in my lap and spreading my skirt and blouse and underwear and socks before me. My mother would come in and always say the same thing: “Free paper burn now.”

Such words conspire to make a past.
Such words conjure a knowledge.
Such words make assimilation impossible. They stay with you for years. They puzzle but you sense a significance. I need these words.”
― Michelle Cliff, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise

“A theory in the flesh means one where the physical realities of our lives- our skin color, the land or concrete we grew up on, our sexual longings- all fuse to create a politic born out of necessity. Here, we attempt to bridge the contradictions in our experience:
We are the colored in a white feminist movement.
We are the feminists among the people of our culture.
We are often the lesbians among the straight.
We do this bridging by naming our selves and by telling our stories in our own words.”
― Michelle Cliff, Claiming an Identity They Taught Me to Despise