Code Switching Quotes

“Code-switching in these spaces is a key skill that not everyone can or will acquire. And the toll of not being adept at this skill plays out not only in how girls are treated by their peers but also in how they are treated by the systems they encounter. A girl who is seen as fitting into the patriarchy’s preset mold of a “good girl,” one who won’t engage in any of that pesky interest in herself, her own goals and concerns, but who is instead seemingly willing to be directed, will often find herself offered more resources by teachers, employers, or other people with power to effect a positive change in her life. A counterpart who is messier, louder, and more invested in being true to herself and where she came from, no matter how much that self departs from accepted ideas of a “good girl,” is unlikely to benefit from the same resources.”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

“Code-switching is dancing between vocal styles and rhythms. This dance is part celebration--of the richness, intricacies, and blurry borders of our cultures.”
― Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks

“People of color know that not all of the safety and spoils of whiteness are available to us. Yet we can speak in the voice of whitness if we so choose. Some of us know no other voice. It was born in us. It is the voice colonization left us. Some of us adopt it later--in childhood or early adulthood -- and lose our other voices. Some of us never allow whiteness into our throats. Some of us code-switch. I am a code-switcher.”
― Nadia Owusu, Aftershocks

“I want to be as laid-back about gender as they are. But I'm not laid-back at all, thanks to Dad. I'm Ashley or I'm Asher and that's that. While I'm switching, for that week or so, everything feels gross and inside out and bass-ackward until I can settle into what I'm switching to. That 'identify as airport' thing Dad said was icky, but it also hit a nail on the head. I hate being in between. It's like when a lousy radio DJ doesn't know how to fade one song into another. That few seconds when both songs are playing but the beats aren't blending and you're like, Oh my god, go back to DJ school.”
― Jules Machias, Both Can Be True

“When you know nothing, you have many reasons to keep silent. Language exposes you to other people. It commits you to versions of the world you may not trust.”
― Hari Kunzru, White Tears