“We tried to outpace the thing that chased us, that said:
You are nothing. We tried to ignore it, but sometimes we caught ourselves repeating what history said, mumbling along, brainwashed:
I am nothing. We drank too much, smoked too much, were abusive to ourselves, to each other. We were bewildered. There is a great darkness bearing down on our lives, and no one acknowledges it.”
―
Jesmyn Ward,
Men We Reaped: A Memoir