Amber

“Cultural appropriation operates as part of a structural power dynamic where the ‘appropriating’ actors belong to an advantaged group. This group systematically extracts the cultural resources of a subordinate group, erasing the subordinate group’s involvement in the process. The structurally advantaged group becomes the primary (financial) benefactor of an innovation that was not theirs.”
― Emma Dabiri, Don't Touch My Hair

“I am one of those cogs, going round and round. I have become a functioning part of the world, rotating in the time of day called morning.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman

“speaking about pain is not the same as dismantling the power structures that create that pain.”
― Emma Dabiri, Don't Touch My Hair

“After all, I absorb the world around me, and that’s changing all the time. Just as all the water that was in my body last time we met has now been replaced with new water, the things that make up me have changed too.”
― Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman