Ronald Lett

“Barack wasn't a real black man, like them--someone who spoke like that, looked like that, and read that many books could never be.
What bothered me most was that Barack exemplified everything parents on the South Side often said they wanted for their kids.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“I sighed sometimes, watching Barack pull the same dark suit out of his closet and head off to work without even needing a comb. ... I quickly found out a truth that no one talks about: Today, virtually every woman in public life--politicians, celebrities, you name it--has some version of Meredith, Johnny, and Carl. It's all but a requirement, a built-in fee for our societal double standard.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“...Barack had told me, he'd contended most often with a deep weariness in people--especially black people---a cynicism bred from a thousand small disappointments over time. I understood it. I'd seen it in my own neighborhood, in my own family. A bitterness, a lapse in faith. It lived in both of my grandfathers, spawned by every goal they'd abandoned and every compromise they'd had to make. It was inside the harried second-grade teacher who'd basically given up trying to teach us at Bryn Mawr. It was inside the neighbor who'd stopped mowing her lawn or keeping track of where her kids went after school. It lived in every piece of trash tossed carelessly in the grass at our local park and every ounce of malt liquor drained before dark. It lived in every last thing we deemed unfixable, including ourselves.”
― Michelle Obama, Becoming

“And even though you’re in denial about the severity of your problem, you change your behavior ever so slightly. You don’t pick up heavy things, you stop doing sports or physical activities that you used to love. Those are only small sacrifices, right? And you’re not really injured, are you? Going to the doctor is just a hassle, y’know? It’s easier to accept that you can’t do certain things, that certain things simply aren’t for you.”
― Jacob Tobia, Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story