Amélie Webb

“They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that ugly is as ugly does. Both are lies. Ugly is everything done to you in the name of beauty. Knowing the difference is part of getting free.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

“I am living in the most opportune time in black history in the United States and that means, still, that I will die younger, live poorer, risk more exposure to police violence, and be punished by social policy for being a black woman in ways that aren’t true for almost any other group in this nation. That is the best it has ever been to be black in America and it is still that statistically bad at the macro level.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

“Our dominant story of beauty is that it is simultaneously a blessing, of genetics or gods, and a site of conversion. You can become beautiful if you accept the right prophets and their wisdoms with a side of products thrown in for good measure. Forget that these two ideas—unique blessing and earned reward—are antithetical to each other. That makes beauty all the more perfect for our (social and political) time, itself anchored in paradoxes like freedom and property, opportunity and equality.”
― Tressie McMillan Cottom, Thick: And Other Essays

“Do not think me a maiden who needs saving from a dragon. I am the dragon, and I will set the world aflame.”
― Sydney Marie Hughes