"I cannot hide my anger to spare your guilt, nor your hurt feelings, nor answering anger; for to do so insults and trivializes all our efforts. Guilt is not a response to anger; it is a response to one's own actions or lack of action. If it leads to change then it can be useful, since it is then no longer guilt but the beginning of knowledge. Yet too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness destructive of communication; it becomes a device to protect ignorance and the continuation of things the way they are, the ultimate protection for changelessness." -- Audre Lorde from the essay "The Uses of Anger: Women Responding to Racism" -- in the text Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
(thanks to
bcholmes
for posting
it where I'd see it earlier.)