Kim Johnson > Quotes

“An AK-47 in a white hand has more rights than a Black kid with Skittles.”
― Kim Johnson, This Is My America

“When I’m ready, I force myself to study Mama, because I need to learn that strength so I can pass it down, like a family recipe. An heirloom. A curse.”
― Kim Johnson, This Is My America

“The prison-industrial complex is a $182 billion industry that feeds off the lives of Black, brown, and poor people caught up in its vicious cycle.* While mass incarceration is a complex problem, I wanted to simply (ha ha) focus on how it’s almost impossible to prove someone is innocent without adequate representation.”
― Kim Johnson, This Is My America

“hundred years, and we still ain’t American to them, T. All that blood. We built America. Black labor built the greatest nation in the world for free. They ripped us from our family then, and they do it again with new laws disguised as change. I’ll be in prison doing that labor for free.”
― Kim Johnson, This Is My America

“How long have I been holding myself ready to fight? I look at the clock on the wall. Time shifting to our side.”
― Kim Johnson, This Is My America

“The beauty standard for Black girls was adjacent to whiteness. Everybody wants to be Black, but nobody wants to be Black.”
― Kim Johnson, Invisible Son

“I learned the hard way that acceptance gained by pretzeling yourself into other people’s visions of you never lasts.”
― Kim Johnson, Invisible Son

“There’s no such thing as innocent until proven guilty—it’s just guilty until proven innocent. No one really wants the truth. They just want it to be done with.”
― Kim Johnson, Invisible Son

“George Floyd is a name I shouldn’t know. Like so many names I shouldn’t know.”
― Kim Johnson, Invisible Son

“You can’t heal somebody else, Andre. All you can do is be the best person you can and hope they do the same.”
― Kim Johnson, Invisible Son