Melissa

“In white culture, forgiveness is synonymous with letting go. In my culture, I believe we carry pain until we can reconcile with it through ceremony. Pain is not framed like a problem with a solution. I don’t even know that white people see transcendence the way we do. I’m not sure that their dichotomies apply to me.”
― Terese Marie Mailhot, Heart Berries

“There has been a tendency to personify racism in the figure of a working-class white redneck who dislikes Black people and spouts hateful things, as opposed to a middle-or upper-class white person who might decry such hatefulness but still embraces racially unjust policies.”
― Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

“Many white Northerners wielded their power and voting pressure at home, even as they might have pressed for desegregation in the South, understanding that you didn't need a governor at a schoolhouse door if you had the Board of Education officials constantly readjusting school zoning lines to maintain segregated schools. You didn't need a burning cross if the bank used maps made by the Federal Housing Authority to mark Black neighborhoods as "dangerous" for investment and deny Black people home loans. You didn't need white vigilantes if the police were willing to protect and serve certain communities while containing and controlling others.”
― Jeanne Theoharis, A More Beautiful and Terrible History: The Uses and Misuses of Civil Rights History

“Am I so worthless that I am barred from taking pleasure in my own suffering?”
― Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Call Me Zebra: A Coming-of-Age Journey Across the Mediterranean