Jenn S

“I don't want to be included. Instead, I want to question who created the standard in the first place. After a lifetime of embodying difference, I have no desire to be equal. I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different. I don't wish to be assimilated into the status quo. I want to be liberated from all the negative assumptions that my characteristics bring. The same onus is not on me to change. Instead it's the world around me..”
― Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

“For instance, why, in 2016, are academics still writing about the misrepresentation in the media of young black men, particularly those associated with crimes? There are numerous studies every year that conclude that young, black males, when they appear in the media, face exaggerated negative associations, limited positive associations, and a distortion of problems as well as missing stories and histories. When we see young, black men in the media, we tend to see their mug shots. the black men don't appear as people, but as images without a history. In deep contrast, serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo was depicted in the media at his wedding; Luka Magnotta, the psychopath who dismembered his lover and sent parts of him to various government officials, was frequently shown in photos taken for a fashion magazine. And the kid who shot up a bunch of people gathered at a church, Dylan Roof. He was shown only as some freak of nature neo-Nazi white guy by his mug shot. The white men committing crimes are the freaks. We hear their stories, we hear about their lives. The black men are the stereotype, and we don't hear about their stories.”
― Anita Arvast, What Killed Jane Creba: Rap, Race, and the Invention of a Gang War

“Between 1934 and 1962 the U.S government handed out billions of dollars in home loans. But those weren't available to anyone black, a system eventually referred to as redlining, which would ensure that only whites could get out of poverty and find ways to wealth. In the U.S., that's what caused the development of ghettos. People of colour were not able to invest in housing that could then be passed on down through generations, forming the sort of wealth that many white people have.”
― Anita Arvast, What Killed Jane Creba: Rap, Race, and the Invention of a Gang War