Jeannette

“The story of Jackie Robinson is a classic example of how whiteness obscures racism by rendering whites, white privilege, and racist institutions invisible. Robinson is often celebrated as the first African American to break the color line and play in major-league baseball. While Robinson was certainly an amazing baseball player, this story line depicts him as racially special, a black man who broke the color line himself. The subtext is that Robinson finally had what it took to play with whites, as if no black athlete before him was strong enough to compete at that level. Imagine if instead, the story went something like this: “Jackie Robinson, the first black man whites allowed to play major-league baseball.” This version makes a critical distinction because no matter how fantastic a player Robinson was, he simply could not play in the major leagues if whites—who controlled the institution—did not allow it. Were he to walk onto the field before being granted permission by white owners and policy makers, the police would have removed him.”
― Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism

“You are broken. But it is broken things that are the sharpest. The deadliest. It is broken things that are the most unexpected, and the most underestimated”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm

“In August, Douglass righteously claimed that “everyone knows that this is the slaveholders’ rebellion and nothing else.” The war, he said, was the work of a “privileged class of irresponsible despots, authorized tyrants and blood-suckers, who fasten upon the Negro’s flesh, and draw political power and consequence from their legalized crimes.”
― David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom

“Your mistakes only define the rest of your life if you let them. Don’t let them.”
― Sabaa Tahir, A ​Sky Beyond the Storm