Erin Sullivan

“Who is here on the shore? Who is watching this shipwreck from the mainland? Is it really just me, no one else? That would suit everyone, but don’t you believe it: I am not here alone on the shore; I’m not alone watching this unending ‘drama at sea’ from a safe distance, night after night.”
― Vincent Delecroix, Small Boat

“Looking at Woja Beki’s face, I wonder why he was ever born, considering there’s an infinite host of unborn begging to be born, considering most of the unborn would be decent people if given a chance at life. Why does the Spirit keep on cursing the world with the existence of the likes of Woja Beki?”
― Imbolo Mbue, How Beautiful We Were

“There are moments like this, and here was not the first, when I understood why they wear on us so, why they chain us, beat us, rape us, hate us, and what I understood was that they would never have this, for all their power, their guns, their gold, they could never get to this feeling”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Water Dancer

“Babylon was the government that had outlawed them, the police that had pummeled and killed them. Babylon was the church that damned them to hellfire. It was the state's boot at the throat, the politician's pistol in the gut. The crown's whips at the back. Babylon was the sinister and violent forces born of western ideology, colonialism, and Christianity that led to the centuries-long enslavement and oppression of Black people, and the corruption of Black minds.”
― Safiya Sinclair, How to Say Babylon