Beth Hughes

“Here’s the thing about killer whales: contrary to popular belief, they won’t kill you and they’re not even whales. That’s what happens to someone when the world decides something about you, grabs hold and morphs you into an illusion of yourself: suddenly even your name isn’t your own.”
― Leila Mottley, The Girls Who Grew Big

“This is how systemic racism works. It's not just a matter of blatant racism; it's also about conditioning people to think less of themselves.

We're not an assumption, we're not words like "thug," we're not a statistic, we're not a part of your imagination, and we are certainly not to be held to WHITE STANDARDS.

We are the Black boy in class who happens to be from a low-income area who is also the smartest person in class (with Fatimah). We are our mistakes, we are our wins, we are good at things, and we are bad at things.

We are people, and we should be treated as such.”
― Frederick Joseph, The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person

“If you’re a student who is desperately attached to a handful of those schools, you need to pull back and think about how quixotic your quest is, recognizing the roles that patronage and pure luck play. You’re going to get into a college that’s more than able to provide a superb education to anyone who insists on one and who takes firm charge of his or her time there. But your chances of getting into the school of your dreams are slim. Your control over the outcome is very, very limited, and that outcome says nothing definitive about your talent or potential. To lose sight of that is to buy into, and essentially endorse, a game that’s spun wildly out of control.”
― Frank Bruni, Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania

“If I'm being honest with you, white people don't have to change; they will be fine without doing so. But white people should change, because just being fine shouldn't be good enough.”
― frederick joseph, The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person