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Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.
You sometimes don’t know you exist until you realize someone like you existed before.
Symbolism gives folks hope. But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, “Look how far you have come” rather than admitting, “Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.”
“We wear the mask that grins and lies, It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,— This debt we pay to human guile; With torn and bleeding hearts we smile, And mouth with myriad subtleties.” Paul Laurence Dunbar
Microaggression is the academic term for what I was experiencing. Simply put, it’s when a person insults or diminishes you based solely on the marginalized group you are in. It’s called “micro” because that person isn’t outright calling you a n**** or a fa* or both. Instead, they’re calling attention to your differences in a low-key way. At times it can seem almost innocent or naïve, but make no mistake, these small things become big over time. These little assumptions grow to create an entire stereotype. This kind of microaggressive behavior often leads to overt racism or homophobia,
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No matter how it comes at you, the impact matters more than the intent.
Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.
“The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.”
The greatest tool you have in fighting the oppression of your Blackness and queerness and anything else within your identity is to be fully educated on it.
Knowledge is truly your sharpest weapon in a world hell-bent on telling you stories that are simply not true.
“the talented tenth” principle, a belief that the top 10 percent of Black intellectuals would lead the other 90 percent out of oppression.
There will always be a different set of standards for us.
“I love each of you differently,” she doesn’t mean I love you less, she means I love you whole, and as you are.
“Why would your relatives hurt you? White people taught y’all to be afraid of ghosts. That’s why they used to dress up in sheets like them. Ain’t no need to be afraid of ghosts of your own people.”
Jim Crow laws, which were a set of rules put in place by white lawmakers to govern how “negroes” were to be treated.
