Erin E. Adams > Quotes

“When your name is in other people's mouths, they twist it up. They make you into something you are not. When people take you outside yourself, that is when trouble comes.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Danger for Black girls was different. It didn’t obey the boundaries of stories. For them, it was always real.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Your beauty is denied but replicated. Your sexuality is controlled but desired. You take up too much space, but if you are too small, you are ripped apart. Despite the wash of it, that’s one thing you can always count on whiteness to do: destroy a threat.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“One drop in this country is all it takes. Being a Black girl is inhabiting a cruel riddle: Your beauty is denied but replicated. Your sexuality is controlled but desired. You take up too much space, but if you are too small, you are ripped apart.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Myths are as much a part of the slipstream of Black life as joy. Yes, Black folks are masters of joy. Trauma isn’t the only thing carried in DNA. Blackness, like any Golden Fleece, is both a birthright and what lies at the end of a quest.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“If there’s one thing fear can do, it’s make a beast out of a shadow. It turns us all into monsters.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“She didn’t need to be an adult to know that sad men are the most dangerous.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“We are good Black people. Good Black folks who don’t bring up race. We don’t make a fuss; we don’t make things uncomfortable; we are calm and cool and collected at all times. Even in the face of death. I think of how I couldn’t fight back. I think of how Garrett tolerated the slaughter of the deer.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Danger didn’t need a place to hide, it preferred to fester. First it would smile and bring you German chocolate cake. Then it would wait out in the open on your front porch until it felt good and ready.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“After a life of shadows, finally, in death, I am seen.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Being blind to color only makes you blind.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Stuck is more than a location,” she said. “It’s a state of mind.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Looking at her, I realize the story of Farrah is more exciting than the reality. Nothing in the woods made her go “mad.” The indifference of the world did that.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Everyone in this town─this country─is so afraid of the other, whoever the “other” is today. If there’s one thing fear can do, it’s make a beast out of a shadow. It turns us all into monsters.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“But learning, naming, and confronting what makes us afraid and uncomfortable, no matter how ugly, is key to understanding and ensuring it never happens again. Sometimes anger comes with truths like this.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“They believed they fled their chains. Some brought new ones with them. Shackled to the God of their captors, they praised him with a faith that was once reserved for deities who looked like them and spoke their mother tongue. Fueled by impossible belief, an unshakable faith was born.”
― Erin E. Adams

“I was supposed to start a clinic here. I had everything ready to go and then that girl disappeared from your school. I got scared. The threats came in their little baggies. I shut everything down because I was scared. The anger in this country, it is not like Ayiti. I used to think it was gone. Or neutered. But it is here. It is a matter of who gets to be angry and who gets to seek vengeance or claim justice. The anger here is not the kind that starts revolutions, it is the kind that wages wars. We fight other countries, the news, the politicians, all fight fight fight and bicker bicker bicker. There are lines and systems—rules of engagement. In Ayiti, the government and the people have an uneasy deal. They cross each other often. When I lived there, it made me edgy. The way things are here, people go so far out of their way to smile to your face and stab you in the back. Even with the language: English. You have to put together so many words to be understood. That is not even being heard, just understood.” Her eyes go back to the deer. She”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“What’s it like living up on the mountain where you don’t have to worry about this? Maybe all of us should move uptown, and when they start stealing white kids and eating their hearts, someone will finally give a shit!”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“You don’t need to. Not all of us want to live packed on top of one another, paying thousands of dollars to sleep in a closet, doing jobs we hate, with people we hate, where our neighbors don’t care if we live or die—I want my kid to play outside without…”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“A luxury of girlhood is being able to play on other people's anxieties without consequence. If you make a girl cry, you must be sorry. If a girl offers you an imaginary phone, you answer it. If a girl reaches for your hand, you take it. In womanhood, all those exchanges become contingent on her ability to pay a price. Sometimes this toll is exacted with no regard for the willingness of the woman.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Much is expected of me, my friends, my life, every second I’m here, because my life was never mine. Instead, it’s a summation of her sacrifices.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Just because you lost her doesn’t mean you get to blame someone else. We’re fixing the mess you made. Caroline isn’t your daughter, she isn’t your blood.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Everyone thinks they know what my anger looks like. They think it’s screaming and yelling and fighting. Sometimes anger is a low vibration, the coil before the spring. Sometimes it sinks inside me and paralyzes me.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“And you had too much to drink at a wedding and lost your best friend’s kid. This is you trying to cover it up. Mel’s life looks pretty damn perfect. Beautiful home. Cute kid. Great husband. You sure you aren’t jealous?” “I refuse to answer that.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“People in America love to believe in freedom, even though it isn’t free. It never was. Not even for those who emblazon it across their cars, patios, and homes. The history of freedom is much older than plastic flags and banners.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“A luxury of girlhood is being able to play on other people’s anxieties without consequence. If you make a girl cry, you must be sorry. If a girl offers you an imaginary phone, you answer it. If a girl reaches for your hand, you take it. In womanhood, all those exchanges become contingent on her ability to pay a price. Sometimes this toll is exacted with no regard for the willingness of the woman.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Myths are as much a part of the slipstream of Black life as joy. Yes, Black folks are masters of joy. Trauma isn’t the only thing carried in DNA. Blackness, like any Golden Fleece, is both a birthright and what lies at the end of a quest. What myth lay just beyond Kayla’s fingers? The woods.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Like every small-town citizen in America, my teacher believed Black people were an alien anomaly in white suburban perfection.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“he wants facts, I can give them to him. “Someone is taking girls. They are abducting Black girls, ripping out their hearts, and dumping them in the woods.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal

“Doubt can open a door in you for anything to walk through.”
― Erin E. Adams, Jackal