Michelle

“There was more than one way to be lost. More than one way to be saved. While my mother had saved me from the waves and gave me breath, my father had tried to save me only by suffocation. With ever increasing strictures, with incense smoke, with fire. Both had wanted better for me, but only one of them would protect me in the end.”
― Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon

“Because how we take care of broken people matters. Fundamentally, I believe, it determines our own humanity. And we don’t just sentence someone to a year or five years or ten years—we turn every sentence into a life sentence. Every sentence is a life sentence.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“Recidivism was the only financially viable path forward. The only way for the government to win is for the inmates to lose. It’s as simple as that.”
― Lara Love Hardin, The Many Lives of Mama Love: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing, and Healing

“For many years, we didn't realize our parents had accents, that their voices sounded different to unkind American ears. All we heard was home.

Then the world intruded. It always does.”
― Roxane Gay, Ayiti