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169 books
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136 voters
“Sometimes I suspect that we build our traps ourselves, then we back into them, pretending amazement the while.”
― The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake
― The Sandman, Vol. 10: The Wake
“If, however, I understand racism as a system into which I was socialized, I can receive feedback on my problematic racial patterns as a helpful way to support my learning and growth. One of the greatest social fears for a white person is being told that something that we have said or done is racially problematic. Yet when someone lets us know that we have just done such a thing, rather than respond with gratitude and relief (after all, now that we are informed, we won’t do it again), we often respond with anger and denial.”
― White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
― White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
“The role of listeners has never been fully appreciated. However, it is well known that most people don’t listen. They use the time when someone else is speaking to think of what they’re going to say next. True Listeners have always been revered among oral cultures, and prized for their rarity value; bards and poets are ten a cow, but a good Listener is hard to find, or at least hard to find twice.”
― Pyramids
― Pyramids
“Don't be superior. Everyone drinks blood. Blood is a word that means alive. You can do without almost anything: arms, legs, teeth, hope. But you can't do without blood. Lose even a little and you grow slow and stupid and not yourself at all. We are all of us beautiful and complicated vessels for carrying blood the way a bottle carries wine. I suppose you think there's no blood in your roast beef? Life eats life. Blood makes you move, makes you blush, makes the pulse pound in your brow when you see your love walking across a street toward you, makes your very thoughts fly through your brain. Blood is everything and everything is blood.”
― The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
― The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two
“The most profound message of racial segregation may be that the absence of people of color from our lives is no real loss. Not one person who loved me, guided me, or taught me ever conveyed that segregation deprived me of anything of value. I could live my entire life without a friend or loved one of color and not see that as a diminishment of my life. In fact, my life trajectory would almost certainly ensure that I had few, if any, people of color in my life. I might meet a few people of color if I played certain sports in school, or if there happened to be one or two persons of color in my class, but when I was outside of that context, I had no proximity to people of color, much less any authentic relationships. Most whites who recall having a friend of color in childhood rarely keep these friendships into adulthood. Yet if my parents had thought it was valuable to have cross-racial relationships, they would have ensured that I had them, even if it took effort—the same effort so many white parents expend to send their children across town so they can attend a better (whiter) school. Pause for a moment and consider the profundity of this message: we are taught that we lose nothing of value through racial segregation. Consider the message we send to our children—as well as to children of color—when we describe white segregation as good.”
― White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
― White Fragility: Why It's So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism
Heather’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Heather’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
645 books
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123 friends
1,260 books
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20 friends
63 books
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2 friends
1,311 books
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225 friends
1,070 books
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75 friends
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