Brandon Sarmiento

“As far back as slavery, white people established a social hierarchy based on race and sex that ranked white men first, white women second, though sometimes equal to black men, who are ranked third, and black women last. What this means in terms of the sexual politics of rape is that if one white woman is raped by a black man, it is seen as more important, more significant than if thousands of black women are raped by one white man. Most Americans, and that includes black people, acknowledge and accept this hierarchy; they have internalized it either consciously or unconsciously. And for this reason, all through American history, black male rape of white women has attracted much more attention and is seen as much more significant than rape of black women by either white or black men.”
― bell hooks, Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“That night was the first time in my life I felt like the words “gay” and “alone” weren’t synonyms for each other.”
― Saeed Jones, How We Fight For Our Lives

“I began to wonder why I felt like I had to choose one thing over another. I was all of these things. I was a plurality. And I was one thing, one word. I was who I said I was. I had said to Professor Slotten: I'm Phuc. I circled back to my name, the only Phuc I had ever met and the only noun I had for who I was.”
― Phuc Tran, Sigh, Gone: A Misfit's Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In

“Racial self-hatred is seeing yourself the way the whites see you, which turns you into your own worst enemy. Your only defense is to be hard on yourself, which becomes compulsive, and therefore a comfort, to peck yourself to death.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning