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There are just some places where it’s not enough to be me. Either version of me.
It’s dope to be black until it’s hard to be black.
people like us in situations like this become hashtags, but they rarely get justice.
Good-byes hurt the most when the other person’s already gone.
‘Sometimes you can do everything right and things will still go wrong. The key is to never stop doing right.’”
after you’ve held two people as they took their last breaths, words like that don’t mean shit anymore.
We’re the ones who get the short end of the stick, but we’re the ones they fear the most.
That’s the hate they’re giving us, baby, a system designed against us. That’s Thug Life.”
I matter more to him than a movement. I’m his baby, and I’ll always be his baby, and if being silent means I’m safe, he’s all for it.
If they break up, it’ll be one more thing One-Fifteen takes from me.
Slave masters thought they were making a difference in black people’s lives too. Saving them from their “wild African ways.” Same shit, different century. I wish people like them would stop thinking that people like me need saving.
That’s the problem. We let people say stuff, and they say it so much that it becomes okay to them and normal for us. What’s the point of having a voice if you’re gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn’t be?
Daddy says he named me Starr because I was his light in the darkness. I need some light in my own darkness right about now.
I was ashamed of Garden Heights and everything in it. It seems stupid now though. I can’t change where I come from or what I’ve been through, so why should I be ashamed of what makes me, me? That’s like being ashamed of myself.
Once upon a time there was a hazel-eyed boy with dimples. I called him Khalil. The world called him a thug. He lived, but not nearly long enough, and for the rest of my life I’ll remember how he died.
Khalil, I’ll never forget. I’ll never give up. I’ll never be quiet. I promise.
