Florine

“So what are you supposed to do? My friends, what I need you to do—just for starters—is not act. Not yet. Not first. First I need you to see. I need you to see the pains and possibilities of black life, its virtues and vices, its strengths and weaknesses, its yeses and nos. I need you to see how the cantankerous varieties of black identity have been distorted by seeing black folk collectively as the nigger. It is not a question of simply not saying nigger; you have to stop believing, no matter what, that black folk are niggers and all the term represents. Instead you must swim in the vast ocean of blackness and then realize you have been buoyed all along on its sustaining views of democracy.”
― Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

“He’s been here one hour, but already he feels like he has never lived anywhere else. And even if he doesn’t know who he was… he knows who he is.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became

“Empathy must be cultivated. The practice of empathy means taking a moment to imagine how you might behave if you were in our positions. Do not tell us how we should act if we were you; imagine how you would act if you were us. Imagine living in a society where your white skin marks you for disgust, hate, and fear. Imagine that for many moments. Only when you see black folks as we are, and image yourselves as we have to live our lives, only then will the suffering stop, the hurt cease, the pain go away.”
― Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America

“And just to add insult to injury? I backhand its ass with Hoboken, raining the drunk rage of ten thousand dudebros down on it like the hammer of God. Port Authority makes it honorary New York, motherfucker; you just got Jerseyed.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became