“Active racism is telling a nurse supervisor that an African American nurse can’t touch your baby. It’s snickering at a black joke. But passive racism? It’s noticing there’s only one person of color in your office and not asking your boss why. It’s reading your kid’s fourth-grade curriculum and seeing that the only black history covered is slavery, and not questioning why. It’s defending a woman in court whose indictment directly resulted from her race…and glossing over that fact, like it hardly matters.”
― Small Great Things
― Small Great Things
“If I had books, if I could scrape together an education, I’d have a future, whether any man ever asked me to marry him or not.”
― The Hired Girl
― The Hired Girl
“Maybe part of falling in love with someone else is also falling in love with yourself.”
― The Sun Is Also a Star
― The Sun Is Also a Star
“There’s a Japanese phrase that I like: koi no yokan. It doesn’t mean love at first sight. It’s closer to love at second sight. It’s the feeling when you meet someone that you’re going to fall in love with them. Maybe you don’t love them right away, but it’s inevitable that you will.”
― The Sun Is Also a Star
― The Sun Is Also a Star
“People always lecture the poor: “Take responsibility for yourself! Make something of yourself!” But with what raw materials are the poor to make something of themselves? People”
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Samantha’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Samantha’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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