Kendra

“The source of racist ideas was not ignorance and hate, but self-interest. The history of racist ideas is the history of powerful policymakers erecting racist policies out of self-interest, then producing racist ideas to defend and rationalize the inequitable effects of their policies, while everyday people consume those racist ideas, which in turn sparks ignorance and hate. Treating ignorance and hate and expecting racism to shrink suddenly seemed like treating a cancer patient’s symptoms and expecting the tumors to shrink. The body politic might feel better momentarily from the treatment—from trying to eradicate hate and ignorance—but as long as the underlying cause remains, the tumors grow, the symptoms return, and inequities spread like cancer cells, threatening the life of the body politic. Educational and moral suasion is not only a failed strategy. It is a suicidal strategy.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Queer antiracism is equating all the race-sexualities, striving to eliminate the inequities between the race-sexualities. We cannot be antiracist if we are homophobic or transphobic. We must continue to “affirm that all Black lives matter,” as the co-founder of Black Lives Matter, Opal Tometi, once said. All Black lives include those of poor transgender Black women, perhaps the most violated and oppressed of all the Black intersectional groups. The average U.S. life expectancy of a transgender woman of color is thirty-five years. The racial violence they face, the transphobia they face as they seek to live freely, is unfathomable.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“What's the endgame of capitalism, if not a big fat white man sitting on top of a pile of bloody bones [after cannibalizing everyone else] with no one around him, crying because no one's around to make him a sandwich? [quoting Adam Franz]”
― Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town

“Individual behaviors can shape the success of individuals. But policies determine the success of groups. And it is racist power that creates the policies that cause racial inequities.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist