Protests and looting naturally capture attention. But the real rage smolders in meetings . . .
white rage doesn’t have to take to the streets and face rubber bullets to be heard. Instead, white rage has access to the courts, police, legislatures, and governors, who cast its efforts as noble . . .
–Jesmyn Ward
My job is not to regulate your response to the truth. My job is to tell it.
–Yaa Gyasi
The fate of millions of people–indeed the future of the black community itself–may depend on the willingness of those who care about racial justice to re-examine their basic assumptions about the role of the criminal justice system in our society.
–Michelle Alexander
I was looking for comfort of some kind when I read a friend and fellow writer’s post. He wrote that this is something that I am “500 lifetimes away from understanding.” He was saying it to the world, to white people, but I took it personally. I hope that was his intention because it is changing me. Maybe trying to understand isn’t the best goal. Maybe taking it personally is a better one.
later that night
i held an atlas in my lap
ran my fingers across the whole world
and whispered
where does it hurt?
it answered
everywhere
everywhere
everywhere.
–Warsan Shire
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again. And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them.
–Sojourner Truth
So many white privileged people have been telling me that I too am privileged. While I am willing to acknowledge this truth, my question for them is Now what? Surely acknowledgment can’t […]
“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change.”
― Audre Lorde
“No black woman writer in this culture can write ‘too much’. Indeed, no woman writer can write ‘too much’…No woman has ever written enough”
― bell hooks
We take our stand on the solidarity of humanity, the oneness of life, and the unnaturalness and injustice of all special favoritism, whether of sex, race, country, or condition. If one link of the chain is broken, the chain is broken.” – Anna Julia Cooper
The Gloria Sirens 