Krishna Pterofractal

“You know that there are no black people in Africa,” she said. Most Americans, weaned on the myth of drawable lines between human beings, have to sit with that statement. It sounds nonsensical to our ears. Of course there are black people in Africa. There is a whole continent of black people in Africa. How could anyone not see that? “Africans are not black,” she said. “They are Igbo and Yoruba, Ewe, Akan, Ndebele. They are not black. They are just themselves. They are humans on the land. That is how they see themselves, and that is who they are.” What we take as gospel in American culture is alien to them, she said. “They don’t become black until they go to America or come to the U.K.,” she said. “It is then that they become black.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“The moderates at the table, among them the chair himself, Franz Gürtner, argued for less onerous methods than the Americans were using. He suggested that “education and enlightenment” about “the perils of race-mixing” might be enough to discourage Aryans from intermarrying with others. At one point, he sought to downplay the U.S. prototype because he had a hard time believing that Americans actually enforced the laws the Nazis had uncovered. “Gürtner simply refused to concede that the Americans actually went so far as to prosecute miscegenists,” Whitman wrote.”
― Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

“How can you judge for certain, this heart is rotted and this one good? What if you make a mistake?” I had been warmed that night by wine and fire, lured by the flush of his regard. “Let us consider,” I said, “a boatload of sailors. Among them, some are undoubtedly worse than others. Some exult in rape and piracy, but others are newly come to it and scarcely have their beards. Some would never imagine robbery, except that their families are starving. Some feel shame after, some do it only because their captain commands it, and because they have the crowd of other men there, to hide among.” “And so,” he said, “which do you change, and which do you let go?” “I change them all,” I said. “They have come to my house. Why should I care what is in their hearts?” He had smiled and lifted his cup to me. “Lady, you and I are in accord.”
― Madeline Miller, Circe

“Sometimes I forget how much I like riding the bike.” “Most chicks do,” I said. “Roar of the engine and so on.” Murphy’s blue eyes glittered with annoyance and anticipation. “Pig. You really enjoy dropping all women together in the same demographic, don’t you?” “It’s not my fault all women like motorcycles, Murph. They’re basically huge vibrators. With wheels.”
― Jim Butcher, Blood Rites