Bellatrix Black

“Often times, what you describe as cultural appreciation is a form of tokenizing and exoticizing while continuing to discard and dehumanize the actual people of that culture. Often times, the cultural elements that are appropriated are stripped of their original cultural context, meaning, and significance and used in such a way as to serve or pleasure whiteness.”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

“you who came to this book with questions about dismantling white supremacy and who leaves this book knowing that you are a part of the problem and that you are simultaneously also a part of the answer.”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

“In her book So You Want to Talk about Race, author Ijeoma Oluo broadly defines cultural appropriation as "the adoption or exploitation of another culture by a more dominant culture".”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor

“white privilege adopts something from a Black or Brown culture, they are somehow enhanced because they have adopted something “exotic.” Cultural appropriation is collecting the parts of Blackness and Brownness that appeal to whiteness while discarding actual Black and Brown people.”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy: Combat Racism, Change the World, and Become a Good Ancestor