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With a lot of power comes great responsibility.
it annoys me that when girls know what they want and how they’re going to get it, they’re seen as cocky. But guys who know what they want? They’re confident or strong.
Note to self: Don’t delete numbers of the people you hate. They might come in handy someday.
People take advantage when you’re weak and fragile.
When you grow up like this, whether it’s in your nature or not, sometimes survival overpowers doing the right thing.
It makes me wonder if my resemblance to my mother has anything to do with this—with Aces. Whether Devon and his Blackness and myself and mine are the reason this creep is picking on us. I feel sick at the thought of it.
It’s hard to ignore the lack of white faces on the posters. It’s hard to ignore the obvious thing tying Chiamaka and me together now: our Black skin.
Growing up, I realized quite quickly that people hate being called racist more than they hate racism itself.
This whole time I was convincing myself that Jamie was as scared as for his future as I am for mine, but truthfully, he’s a white man and they are able to get away with murder.
“Chiamaka means ‘God is beautiful,’ and Adebayo, from my father, means ‘she who came in a joyful time.’”
I wanted you to know that when I call your name, Chiamaka, I’m saying My daughter is beautiful and smart, and she brings me so much joy.”
I can “fix” the kinks in my hair, but not the kinks in this whole system that hates me and Devon and everyone who looks like us.
“We didn’t come this far to just come this far, right? We can’t let them win,
I hate that these systems, all this institutional shit, can get to me. I hate how they have the power to kill my future, kill me. They treat my Black skin like a gun or a grenade or a knife that is dangerous and lethal, when really it’s them. The guys at the top powering everything.
