Catherine

“The more I have studied disparities in multicultural societies, the more I have found the language of “overrepresentation” and “underrepresentation” to be fundamentally misleading. These words assume that there is something normal or “to be expected” about seeing different ethnic groups represented at precisely their share of the total population in every domain, statistic, and occupation, when in fact nothing is more normal than for different subcultures to specialize in particular sectors and occupations and experience very different group-wide statistics as a result. The vast majority of such disparities are not plausibly explained by bigotry, systemic racism, or unfairness but by demographic and cultural differences between the groups in question at a particular time.”
― Coleman Hughes, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America

“You cannot act upon what you cannot see. And we are plagued by dead language and dead stories that serve people whose aim is nothing short of a dead world. And it is not enough to stand against these dissemblers. There has to be something in you, something that hungers for clarity. And you will need that hunger, because if you follow that path, soon enough you will find yourself confronting not just their myths, not just their stories, but your own.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message

“The scent of a flower, the flight of sea-gulls around a cliff, a cornfield in sunshine—these stir him to strange delight. A deed of bravery, nobility, or of simple devotion; a mere brotherly act of kindness, the unconscious sacrifice of the peasant who toils all day to feed and clothe his children—these awake his warm and instant sympathy.”
― Maurice Maeterlinck, Wisdom and Destiny

“Like all children, they knew more than they knew that they knew.”
― Andrea Barrett, Ship Fever: Stories