emma

“I believe God crafted the sound of a woman’s scream,” she says, “to pierce the heart and to test our humanity, whether we still have it or whether we have left it behind. “But there are men for whom a woman’s scream is as a fist that bounces off armor. I have thought to myself, What choices does a woman have for vengeance, for justice? For we cannot simply pray. I can’t stomach my mother’s prayers. We cannot afford to wait and be still. I won’t live this way—not anymore. So when I spoke to God that morning, I decided, if I am to scream, let it be in battle. There is no chance for peace except at the point of a sword.”
― Katherine J. Chen, Joan

“Out of this came the idea of Neurodiversity, first documented by a sociology student called Judy Singer. The basic point was that we should reject the very idea of a ‘normal’ brain and the ‘neurotypical’ as an ideal. Instead, it implied viewing mental functioning more in the way we view biodiversity.”
― Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism

“In this view, it takes all kinds of minds for society to function, and thus normality should not be assumed to be superior to divergence. Rather, there were many kinds of minds. Each was enabled or disabled in different environments, and no single one was naturally superior to all the others.”
― Robert Chapman, Empire of Normality: Neurodiversity and Capitalism

“You must make your own map of the world. Search out your own piece of sky and patch of earth, your own awning to sleep under when it is raining and it feels the sun may never shine again, for there will certainly be such days. No one can walk this path for you. You cannot simply follow in another's footsteps, as though life were a complicated dance, every turn and twist memorized and prepared for ahead of time. There are many things in the world you can inherit: money, land, power, a crown. But an adventure is not one of them; you must make your own journey.”
― Katherine J. Chen, Joan