Anusha

“When heroin was doing the most damage to communities of color, the American response was aggressive criminalization. It is not exactly a cutting edge analysis to point out that the war on drugs disproportionately affected black men. And now heroin has, mediated by pharmaceutical opioids, made its way into every nook and cranny of the United States, indiscriminately, killing white and non-white folks like, we're screaming alarm. Our response is outrage at any perpetrator we can find (pharma, for instance) and sympathy, for those caught up in the grips of addiction. Whereas we jumped at the chance to throw black men in jail for possessing small amounts of drugs or drug paraphernalia, now we have books like this one, discussing the need to get people, clean needles, a safe space to inject, and treatment when they're ready. It would take serious, mental, gymnastics to make one believe that this has nothing to do with it, especially in a country riddled with a history of racism.”
― Travis Rieder, In Pain: A Bioethicist's Personal Struggle with Opioids

“The truth was that Doreen and Patrice didn't expect much from Malik, not because of anything he had done, but because of their own experiences with men. Patrice's and Natasha's fathers had left Doreen; Ruby and C.J.'s daddy was in prison. The fathers of Patrice's children played a negligible role in their lives... Doreen and Patrice did not see why a man needed to be involved in family decisions about where to raise a child, let alone what to name it. Said Doreen to Natasha, "There was no one around to rub my stomach when you were kicking me." Said Patrice, "We didn't have a daddy. My kids don't have no daddy. And your kids don't need no daddy.”
― Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

“As babies, we are trapped in a strange, alien world, unable to see properly, constantly surprised at our bodies, alarmed by hunger and wind, and bowel movements, overwhelmed by our feelings. We are quite literally under attack. We need our mother to soothe out distress and make sense of the experience. As she does so, we slowly learn how to manage our physical and emotional states on her own. But our ability to contain ourselves directly depends on our mother's ability to contain us - if she never experienced containment by her own mother, how could she teach us what she does not know? Someone who has never learned to contain themselves is plagued by anxious feelings for the rest of their life.”
― Alex Michaelides, The Silent Patient

“Carol Dweck believes that kids can get into a fixed mindset in which they are not open to taking on challenges and improving because they are afraid of failing. She encourages parents and teachers to foster a "growth mindset" among children so that kids see their capabilities not as static but as ever-improving with effort. She thus recommends praising kids' attempts rather than their results to keep them hungry to try and achieve more, as kids who are only commended for their achievements may become afraid of no longer achieving.”
― Blythe Grossberg, I Left My Homework in the Hamptons: What I Learned Teaching the Children of the One Percent