lexicondst

“But I am not impressed with America’s progress. I am not impressed that slavery was abolished or that Jim Crow ended. I feel no need to pat America on its back for these “achievements.” This is how it always should have been. Many call it progress, but I do not consider it praiseworthy that only within the last generation did America reach the baseline for human decency. As comedian Chris Rock says, I suppose these things were progress for white people, but damn. I hope there is progress I can sincerely applaud on the horizon. Because the extrajudicial killing of Black people is still too familiar. Because the racist rhetoric that Black people are lazier, more criminal, more undeserving than white people is still too familiar. Because the locking up of a disproportionate number of Black bodies is still too familiar. Because the beating of Black people in the streets is still too familiar. History is collapsing on itself once again.”
― Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

“His headstone said
FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST
But death is a slave's freedom
We seek the freedom of free men
And the construction of a world
Where Martin Luther King could have lived and
preached non-violence”
― Nikki Giovanni

“When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?”
― Thich Nhat Hanh, No Death, No Fear: Comforting Wisdom for Life

“Oppressors always expect the oppressed to extend to them the understanding so lacking in themselves.”
― Audre Lorde