Amdaniels07

“It's work to be the only person of color in an organization, bearing the weight of all your white co-workers questions about Blackness. It's work to always be hypervisible because of your skim - easily identified as being present or absent - but for your needs to be completely invisible to those around you. It's work to do the emotional labor or pointing out problematic racist thinking, policies, actions, and statements while desperately trying to avoid bitterness and cynicism.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Whiteness constantly polices the expressions of Blackness allowed within its walls, attempting to accrue no more than what’s necessary to affirm itself. It wants us to sing the celebratory “We Shall Overcome” during MLK Day but doesn’t want to hear the indicting lyrics of “Strange Fruit.” It wants to see a Black person seated at the table but doesn’t want to hear a dissenting viewpoint. It wants to pat itself on the back for helping poor Black folks through missions or urban projects but has no interest in learning from Black people’s wisdom, talent, and spiritual depth.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“White people who expect me to be white have not yet realized that their cultural way of being is not in fact the result of goodness, rightness, or God’s blessing. Pushing back, resisting the lie, is hella work.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“Even when our babies aren't perfect, even when they are rude or disrespectful, even when they make mistakes or fail, even when their sixteen-year-old brains tell them to do risky, stupid things, we still want them to live.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness