Tayler Simon

“It’s not always hatred or disdain that makes your skin crawl. In fact, sometimes, it’s the exact opposite: Some people will easily love your Blackness. They will respond to it, gravitate toward it, see it before they even see the rest of you. And once they see it and classify it into their preferred category, they won’t bother to look any further. The rest of you is just a skeleton holding up that beautiful Black skin.”
― Ben Philippe, Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump – A Hilarious Memoir-in-Essays on Race and Identity

“No one is apolitical. Not a single person. The few people I’ve met who proudly consider themselves as such tend to assume that not paying attention, not voting, isn’t in itself a privilege. That it is not in itself proof that their day-to-day existence won’t be affected by choosing to stay on the sidelines, tending to literal gardens. The fact of the matter is that if you have a life that leaves you foolproof to politics, your politics approximate to “privileged.”
― Ben Philippe, Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump – A Hilarious Memoir-in-Essays on Race and Identity

“I see “Anti-Antifa” T-shirts, which is just grammatically redundant. There’s an easier word there.”
― Ben Philippe, Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump – A Hilarious Memoir-in-Essays on Race and Identity

“How many others have there been that you and I will never hear about? How many Black hearts were violently stopped between Emmett Till and George Floyd? Away from crowds and before cell phone cameras?”
― Ben Philippe, Sure, I'll Be Your Black Friend: Notes from the Other Side of the Fist Bump – A Hilarious Memoir-in-Essays on Race and Identity