Nazanin

“But race is the child of racism, not the father. And the process of naming "the people" has never been a matter of genealogy and physiognomy so much as one of hierarchy. Difference in hue and hair is old. But the belief in the preeminence of hue and hair, the notion that these factors can correctly organize a society and that they signify deeper attributes, which are indelible-this is the new idea at the heart of these new people who have been brought up hopelessly, tragically, deceitfully, to believe that they are white.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Hospitality is gold in this City; you have to be clever to figure out how to be welcoming and defensive at the same time. When to love something and when to quit. If you don't know how, you can end up out of control or controlled by some outside thing like that hard case last winter. Word was that underneath the good times and the easy money something evil ran the streets and nothing was safe—not even the dead”
― Toni Morrison, Jazz

“In accepting both the chaos of history and the fact of my total end, I was freed to truly consider how I wished to live-specifically, how do I live free in this black body? It is a profound question because America understands itself as God's handiwork, but the black body is the clearest evidence that America is the work of men.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Word of the year:
monachopsis noun the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place. Unable to recognize your intended habitat, never feeling as though you are at home.”
― Alice Feeney, Rock Paper Scissors