Alex Savvides

“Refilling the pool will require us to believe in government so much that we hold it to the highest standard of excellence and commit our generation’s best and brightest to careers designing public goods instead of photo-sharing apps.”
― Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

“After the first group of families arrived in Lewiston by word of mouth, then-Mayor Laurier Raymond Jr. wrote an open letter saying that the town was full, even though much of downtown lay vacant. “This large number of new arrivals cannot continue without negative results for all,” Raymond wrote. The letter became a rallying cry for white supremacists, who descended on the town for a march soon after. An early Republican in the Trump mold, Governor Paul LePage won his elections campaigning against welfare, suggesting that immigrants were stealing resources from the local taxpayers. Said shook his head.”
― Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together

“have liked for him to say my name again, though. You know how it is when someone says your name really well, like it means something that makes the world a better place. In Louis Chen’s case, he sometimes says my name as if it were a lesser-known word for bacon.”
― Helen Oyeyemi, Boy, Snow, Bird

“By denying the reality of racism and their own role in it, Berry explained, white Americans have denied themselves critical self-knowledge and created a prettified and falsified version of American history for themselves to believe in, one built on the “wishful insinuation that we have done no harm.” Of course, he understood the impulse of white people—himself included—to protect themselves from “the anguish implicit in their racism.”
― Heather McGhee, The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together