78,362 books
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292,154 voters
“minority and underprivileged students rise to the challenge all the time—but it takes energy. It takes energy to be the only black person in a lecture hall or one of a few nonwhite people trying out for a play or joining an intramural team. It requires effort, an extra level of confidence, to speak in those settings and own your presence in the room. Which is why when my friends and I found one another at dinner each night, it was with some degree of relief. It’s why we stayed a long time and laughed as much as we could.”
― Becoming
― Becoming
“you sometimes feel totally unready for them, or even that they’re”
― The Interestings
― The Interestings
“failure is a feeling long before it’s an actual result.”
― Becoming
― Becoming
“Hearing them, I realized that they weren’t at all smarter than the rest of us. They were simply emboldened, floating on an ancient tide of superiority, buoyed by the fact that history had never told them anything different.”
― Becoming
― Becoming
“Years later, after I’d met and married my husband—a man who is light-skinned to some and dark-skinned to others, who speaks like an Ivy League–educated black Hawaiian raised by white middle-class Kansans—I’d see this confusion play out on the national stage among whites and blacks alike, the need to situate someone inside his or her ethnicity and the frustration that comes when it can’t easily be done. America would bring to Barack Obama the same questions my cousin was unconsciously putting to me that day on the stoop: Are you what you appear to be?”
― Becoming
― Becoming
Elaine’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Elaine’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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