See use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house in All languages combined, or Wiktionary
Download JSON data for use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house meaning in English (3.9kB)
{
"etymology_text": "From Audre Lorde's essay \"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House\".",
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"expansion": "use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house",
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"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
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"name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
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"examples": [
{
"text": "You'll never be able to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house."
},
{
"ref": "2009 December 30, Wendy Lynne Lee, Contemporary Feminist Theory and Activism: Six Global Issues, Broadview Press, page 29",
"text": "We are, in fact, trying to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house by appealing to the same binary logic that undergirds SB 1250. As Butler points out, however, this is a strategy that is destined for trouble: the[…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 January 4, Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Volume 2: Resistance, Seven Stories Press",
"text": "[…], and I'm not sure mother grizzly bears would agree that love implies pacifism, nor mother moose, nor many other mothers I've known. You can't use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 December 6, Mark P. Leone, Parker B. Potter Jr., Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, Springer Science & Business Media",
"text": "Can we, indeed, use the “master's tools” to dismantle the “master's house?” Says Audre Lorde (1984: 112), in Sister Outsider:\n... 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 [win].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 August 26, Kate Cregan, Denise Cuthbert, Global Childhoods: Issues and Debates, SAGE",
"text": "Ho Chi Minh, Mahatma Gandhi and Lee Kuan Yew, all of whom used the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, are cited as compelling examples of the empowerment gained through European education.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Kristen Lillvis, Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination, University of Georgia Press, page 95",
"text": "Initially, though, Tahneh and Diut appear to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. In order to prevent Diut's capture, Tahneh uses her influence to persuade her Rohkohn community and Diut, as well as his two Tehkohn[…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2019 February 4, Janet Alsup, Millennial Teacher Identity Discourses: Balancing Self and Other, Routledge",
"text": "In other words, this integrative discourse, most often in the form of narrative, allowed them to “use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house,” as described by poet and feminist activist Audre Lorde in her original 1984 essay].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 July 28, D.A. Wood, Epistemic Decolonization: A Critical Investigation into the Anticolonial Politics of Knowledge, Springer Nature, page 176",
"text": "On the other hand, the statement under consideration functions normatively, implying that one should never use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The Haitian Revolution, like all others, did not produce a perfect[…]",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To use the tools and framework of an oppressive (e.g. racist or patriarchal) system to end that oppression."
],
"id": "en-use_the_master's_tools_to_dismantle_the_master's_house-en-verb-KfcqxzyB",
"links": [
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[
"racist",
"racist"
],
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"patriarchal",
"patriarchal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(chiefly in the negative) To use the tools and framework of an oppressive (e.g. racist or patriarchal) system to end that oppression."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in the negative"
],
"wikipedia": [
"Audre Lorde"
]
}
],
"word": "use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house"
}
{
"etymology_text": "From Audre Lorde's essay \"The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House\".",
"head_templates": [
{
"args": {
"1": "en",
"2": "verb"
},
"expansion": "use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house",
"name": "head"
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],
"lang": "English",
"lang_code": "en",
"pos": "verb",
"senses": [
{
"categories": [
"English entries with incorrect language header",
"English lemmas",
"English multiword terms",
"English terms coined by Audre Lorde",
"English terms with quotations",
"English verbs"
],
"examples": [
{
"text": "You'll never be able to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house."
},
{
"ref": "2009 December 30, Wendy Lynne Lee, Contemporary Feminist Theory and Activism: Six Global Issues, Broadview Press, page 29",
"text": "We are, in fact, trying to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house by appealing to the same binary logic that undergirds SB 1250. As Butler points out, however, this is a strategy that is destined for trouble: the[…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2011 January 4, Derrick Jensen, Endgame, Volume 2: Resistance, Seven Stories Press",
"text": "[…], and I'm not sure mother grizzly bears would agree that love implies pacifism, nor mother moose, nor many other mothers I've known. You can't use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2012 December 6, Mark P. Leone, Parker B. Potter Jr., Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism, Springer Science & Business Media",
"text": "Can we, indeed, use the “master's tools” to dismantle the “master's house?” Says Audre Lorde (1984: 112), in Sister Outsider:\n... 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 [win].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2014 August 26, Kate Cregan, Denise Cuthbert, Global Childhoods: Issues and Debates, SAGE",
"text": "Ho Chi Minh, Mahatma Gandhi and Lee Kuan Yew, all of whom used the master's tools to dismantle the master's house, are cited as compelling examples of the empowerment gained through European education.",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2017, Kristen Lillvis, Posthuman Blackness and the Black Female Imagination, University of Georgia Press, page 95",
"text": "Initially, though, Tahneh and Diut appear to use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. In order to prevent Diut's capture, Tahneh uses her influence to persuade her Rohkohn community and Diut, as well as his two Tehkohn[…]",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2019 February 4, Janet Alsup, Millennial Teacher Identity Discourses: Balancing Self and Other, Routledge",
"text": "In other words, this integrative discourse, most often in the form of narrative, allowed them to “use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house,” as described by poet and feminist activist Audre Lorde in her original 1984 essay].",
"type": "quotation"
},
{
"ref": "2020 July 28, D.A. Wood, Epistemic Decolonization: A Critical Investigation into the Anticolonial Politics of Knowledge, Springer Nature, page 176",
"text": "On the other hand, the statement under consideration functions normatively, implying that one should never use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. The Haitian Revolution, like all others, did not produce a perfect[…]",
"type": "quotation"
}
],
"glosses": [
"To use the tools and framework of an oppressive (e.g. racist or patriarchal) system to end that oppression."
],
"links": [
[
"framework",
"framework"
],
[
"racist",
"racist"
],
[
"patriarchal",
"patriarchal"
]
],
"raw_glosses": [
"(chiefly in the negative) To use the tools and framework of an oppressive (e.g. racist or patriarchal) system to end that oppression."
],
"raw_tags": [
"in the negative"
],
"wikipedia": [
"Audre Lorde"
]
}
],
"word": "use the master's tools to dismantle the master's house"
}
This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-04-26 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-04-21 using wiktextract (93a6c53 and 21a9316). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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