Kelsee

“What is belonging?” we ask. She says, “Where loneliness ends.”
― Rivers Solomon, The Deep

“She tried to breathe in the feeling of doing something good and right and difficult that no one could understand. She didn't wonder if she was right; she wondered why it was her destiny to do so many good, hard things.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

“Mari looked at the woman and took a breath. “I’m an abolitionist, which means I’m interested in investing in communities to address problems rather than carceral answers that don’t serve communities at all. Murderers and rapists do great harm,” Mari said, “but the carceral institutions in this country do little to mitigate that harm. In fact, they do more harm to individuals and communities. The carceral state depends on a dichotomy between innocent and guilty, or good and bad, so that they can then define harm on their terms, in the name of justice, and administer it on a massive scale to support a capitalistic, violent, and inherently inequitable system.” And though this was what she said, and had said so many times, a part of her even then understood what this reporter was getting at. There were some people who she did not think should be released. Her father had been one of them.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars

“They were all humans, and yet they had completely different ideas about what humanity meant.”
― Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, Chain-Gang All-Stars