rose

“My grandfather, born in 1912, was the grandson of slaves, the son of a millworker, and the oldest of what would be ten children in his family. A quick-witted and intelligent kid, he’d been nicknamed “the Professor” and set his sights early on the idea of someday going to college. But not only was he black and from a poor family, he also came of age during the Great Depression.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“Now that I’m an adult, I realize that kids know at a very young age when they’re being devalued, when adults aren’t invested enough to help them learn. Their anger over it can manifest itself as unruliness. It’s hardly their fault. They aren’t “bad kids.” They’re just trying to survive bad circumstances.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain’t through learning—because that ain’t the time at all. It’s when he’s at his lowest and can’t believe in hisself ’cause the world done whipped him so! When you starts measuring somebody, measure him right, child, measure him right. Make sure you done taken into account what hills and valleys he come through before he got to wherever he is.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun

“Seven and I get Sekani after school, and he won’t shut up about the news cameras he saw from his classroom window, because he’s Sekani and he came into this world looking for a camera. I have too many selfies of him on my phone giving the “light skin face,” his eyes squinted and eyebrows raised.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give