Charla

“Here's the definition of shame that emerged from my research: Shame is the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love, belonging, and connection. Shame thrives on secrecy, silence, and judgement. If you put shame into a petri dish and douse it with these three things, it will grow exponentially into every corner and crevice of our lives. The antidote to shame is empathy. If we reach out and share our shame experience with someone who responds with empathy, shame dissipates. Shame needs you to believe that you're alone. Empathy is a hostile environment for shame.”
― Brené Brown

“One man is no man.”
― Ancient Proverb

“At the risk of oversimplifying a topic that deserves entire books, we can summarize like this: During enslavement, many Black cooks learned their way around kitchens because their lives could depend on having that knowledge and skill. After slavery was abolished, many took to slinging fried chicken (or cooking in general) as one way to make a living. Interestingly, it wasn’t until Black folks began navigating their supposed freedoms-applying to schools, looking for paid work, seeking housing-that cartoonish, offensive images of Black folks eagerly consuming chicken or stealing chickens began to appear in essays, comics, advertisements, and postcards, perpetuating a narrative by white society that Black people were subhuman and needed to be controlled, policed, and locked out of mainstream opportunities. Exacerbated by the deep white resentment of Black people’s increasing social and political mobility (this period saw the largest representation of Black people in Congress than any time since), the idea took root that being Black meant that you loved fried chicken so much that you couldn’t resist it. This narrative is a painful legacy of slavery that wasn’t of our own making and is ironic, given that people all over the world get down with wings and things. But the essence of this stereotype persists. We know folks who refuse to eat fried chicken around white people, or chefs who don’t cook it in their restaurants, because they feel that’s the only thing certain diners expect from them…American fried chicken tastes good. It’s also complicated.”
― Jon Gray, Ghetto Gastro Presents Black Power Kitchen

“Vomiting may consciously be a behavior to keep the weight down, but unconsciously bulimics resort to vomiting as a way to cleanse themselves of the shameful amount of food they just devoured. By vomiting one literally bathes in shame.”
― John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Binds You