Let’s talk about the “master’s tools,” what they are, and what they are not

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Last week, I wrote about the importance of liberal funders investing in progressive leaders the way the right wing invests in conservative ones. A colleague wrote in the comment section on social media, “I don’t think the left is going to win by copying the Right. The Right appeals to the interests of the wealthy. The truly radical Left does not. In fact, the radical Left poses a direct threat. Master’s house, Master’s tools…”

Several colleagues agreed. I think the comment is thought-provoking. The right appeals to the wealthy, whereas true leftists are a threat to those who hoard wealth and power; I can’t agree more.  

However, I do think Audre Lorde’s quote has been frequently used out of context. People bring it up every time I mention learning from the right. Like when I talked about how we need to be politically engaged. Or how we need to use money the way the right does. Whenever anyone suggests learning anything from the conservative movement, someone will mention the quote.

Here is Audre Lorde's full essay where the quote is mentioned. She had been invited to speak at a conference on feminism. From my reading of the essay, she was frustrated being tokenized as one of the few Black women invited to speak. She called out the exclusion by the conference of other women, including those who were poor, lesbian, or from other countries. She called out white women using the same oppressive tactics on other women that men often use against women to maintain the patriarchy. Here’s the extended quote:

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black, who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learning how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to make common cause with those others identified as outside the structures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish. It is learning how to take our differences and make them strengths. For the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to those women who still define the master's house as their only source of support.”

I’m no Audre Lorde scholar, so please correct me if I misinterpret, but in the context of her essay, it seems the “Master’s tools” she was talking about are things like exclusion, tokenization, and appealing to men for power and legitimacy, tools that white women specifically were using against Black women (and other women of marginalized identities) even as they worked toward advancing feminism. She claims what’s really needed for true liberation is honoring differences and diversity and building community and solidarity.

I'm not sure Audre Lorde would agree that any tool that’s used by “the master” is a “master’s tool.” But it seems many colleagues have that interpretation. This can seriously hamper us in our work by cutting us off from many powerful strategies and resources. If the right-wing uses community organizing effectively (and it has), does that mean progressives shouldn’t do organizing, because that’s now a “master’s tool?”

Maybe it's not a tool itself, but how it's used by "the master," that makes it a "master's tool." Power, for example, is something a lot of people are afraid of and often associate with something used to oppress. But it can be used to liberate. As MLK said, "[A]ll of us have our moral convictions and concerns, and so often have problems with power. There is nothing wrong with power if power is used correctly."

Also, as another colleague said months ago, “What if the master stole some of these tools?” It would certainly be right up the master’s alley to steal stuff the communities they oppress have been using for years. Art, music, community, anything can be corrupted and used by those of privilege to further inequity and injustice. To then call these things “Master’s tools” gives the oppressors way more credit than they deserve while potentially depriving marginalized communities of tools they themselves created.

Imagine there’s a beautiful community garden. Neighbors use it to grow food, medicinal plants, and flowers, all of it benefiting everyone. Over time, a group of neighbors are angry that some people they hate get to benefit from the garden. So they persuade enough other neighbors to plant poison hemlock, which destroys the garden and harms lots of people.

Eventually someone says, “We need to convince everyone to help remove the poison hemlock and plant helpful plants to restore the garden.” But someone else says, “What? Planting?! Planting and gardening are why we have this poison hemlock problem! And ‘convincing’ people? Didn’t those people who wanted to destroy the garden also used “convincing” as a tactic to get us to plant poison hemlock? We can’t use the same strategies as the people who got us into this mess!”

In the above example, gardening itself is not a harmful strategy. Convincing people to do something is not a harmful strategy. Sure, the people who wanted to destroy the garden used these strategies, and they used them effectively to advance their horrible goals, but the activities themselves are neutral.

Which brings us to a lot of the strategies the right wing uses so effectively. Most of them are values neutral, and labeling them as evil or “tools of the master’s” prevents their usage to advance equity and justice.

The right-wing works to elect politicians who are xenophobic, transphobic, misogynistic. Progressives working to elect politicians who are inclusive, supportive of trans people, believe in reproductive rights, and so on, that’s not using the Master’s Tools.

The right-wing invests in their young people to turn them conservative. Progressive organizations and movements investing in our young, teaching them the values of equity, inclusion, and justice using similar means, that’s not using the Master’s Tools.

The right-wing invests in narrative change by creating media channels such as online publications, podcasts, YouTube channels, social media networks, etc. A foundation funding narrative work by supporting local newspapers, creating grants for progressive content creators, and buying up conservative platforms and converting them into progressive ones, that’s not using the Master’s Tools.

The right-wing builds strong and powerful conservative institutions by giving 20-year general operating grants. Liberal funders doing the same thing, providing 20-year grants to left-leaning organizations and movements so that they can be effective in advancing progressive values, that’s not using the Master’s Tools.

The right-wing for decades have been packing the courts in the land, at every level, with conservative judges and have been very good at it. Liberals working to get progressive judges elected, that’s not using the Master’s Tools.

I know everyone’s tired and frustrated and often demoralized, so I don’t blame any of us for being cynical. And it takes a tremendous amount of teeth-grinding patience and suppression of revulsion to look at all the destruction, cruelty, and chaos caused by the right-wing to individuals, society, and the environment and think, “Let’s learn from what they’re doing and maybe copy some of it.”

At the same time, we need to be able to distinguish which strategies are legitimately harmful and oppressive that we should not copy—sowing hatred, violating due process, using the marginalized as scapegoats, targeting the politically and socially weakest populations in society, spreading misinformation, doxxing people and sending bomb threats to their kids' schools, etc.,—and which ones are effective that we should be using.

Let me know your thoughts.

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