DFZ

“There is a power that can be created out of pent-up indignation, courage, and the inspiration of a common cause, and that if enough people put their minds and bodies into that cause, they can win. It is a phenomenon recorded again and against in the history of popular movements against injustice all over the world.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“Don’t you know that slavery was outlawed?”
“No,” the guard said, “you’re wrong. Slavery was outlawed with the exception of prisons. Slavery is legal in prisons.”
I looked it up and sure enough, she was right. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution says:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Well, that explained a lot of things. That explained why jails and prisons all over the country are filled to the brim with Black and Third World people, why so many Black people can’t find a job on the streets and are forced to survive the best way they know how. Once you’re in prison, there are plenty of jobs, and, if you don’t want to work, they beat you up and throw you in a hole. If every state had to pay workers to do the jobs prisoners are forced to do, the salaries would amount to billions… Prisons are a profitable business. They are a way of legally perpetuating slavery. In every state more and more prisons are being built and even more are on the drawing board. Who are they for? They certainly aren’t planning to put white people in them. Prisons are part of this government’s genocidal war against Black and Third World people.”
― Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

“Society often blurs the lines between drag queens and trans women. This is highly problematic, because many people believe that, like drag queens, trans women go home, take off their wigs and chest plates, and walk around as men. Trans womanhood is not a performance or costume. As Wendi likes to joke, “A drag queen is part-time for showtime, and a trans woman is all the time!”
― Janet Mock, Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More

“You told me that one of the reasons you couldn't be with me was that you were afraid of my relationship with death, of the responsibility of keeping me alive.

I found that incredibly insulting. No one asked you to keep me alive. No one asked you to be a ventilator, a pair of hands desperate against my sternum, a series of gasping breaths into a slack mouth. You're not qualified. No one is qualified. I am not a person who thinks that anyone is coming to save me except myself. I have been dying my whole life, don't you understand, flirting with death, bargaining, stalling, shifting strategies to stay alive. I am the person who is best at keeping myself alive, there is no singular love responsible for me, there is no one who knows me deeper, you would make a useless life jacket. You will never be better at it than I am. All I wanted was someone for the loneliness, someone to hold my hand and sit in the dark with me.”
― Akwaeke Emezi, Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir