Exclusion Quotes

“All paradises, all utopias are defined by who is not there, by the people who are not allowed in.

[Conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, PBS NewsHour, March 9, 1998]”
― Toni Morrison

“Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of difference - those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are black, who are older - know that survival is not an academic skill...For the master's tools will not dismantle the master's house. They will never allow us to bring about genuine change.”
― Audre Lorde

“We of alien looks or words must stick together.”
― C.J. Sansom, Revelation

“Once again she would arrive at a foreign place. Once again be the newcomer, an outsider, the one who did not belong. She knew from experience that she would quickly have to ingratiate herself with her new masters to avoid being rejected or, in more dire cases, punished. Then there would be the phase where she would have to sharpen her senses in order to see and hear as acutely as possible so that she could assimilate quickly all the new customs and the words most frequently used by the group she was to become a part of--so that finally, she would be judged on her own merits.”
― Laura Esquivel, Malinche

“Because if you don't have someone to run out of town once in a while, how are you going to know you yourself belong there?”
― Richard Bachman, Thinner

“The faith a movement proclaims doesn't count: what counts is the hope it offers. All heresies are the banner of a reality, an exclusion. Scratch the heresy and you will find the leper. Every battle against heresy wants only this: to keep the leper as he is.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“What the fissure through which one sees disaster? The circle is unbroken; the harmony complete. Here is the central rhythm; here the common mainspring. I watch it expand, contract; and then expand again. Yet I am not included.”
― Virginia Woolf, The Waves

“ There is a circle of humanity, he told me, and I can feel its warmth. But I am forever outside. ”
― Susan Griffin, A Chorus of Stones: The Private Life of War

“For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying 'lepers' we would understand 'outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities.' But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

“The continuum in which we live is not the kind of place in which middles can be unambiguously excluded. ”
― Reuben Abel

“When a person is deserted, he learns by default, how to survive.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Night of a Thousand Thoughts

“False accusations of harm are used to avoid acknowledgment of complicity in creating conflict and instead escalate normative conflict to the level of crisis. This choice to punish rather than resolve is a product of distorted thinking, and relies on reinforcement of negative group relationships, when instead these ideolo-
gies should be actively challenged. Through this over-statement of harm, false accusations are used to justify cruelty, while shunning keeps information from entering into the process. Resistance to shunning, exclusion, and unilateral control, while necessary, are mischaracterized as harm and
used to re-justify more escalation towards bullying, state intervention, and violence. Emphasizing communication and repair, instead of shunning and separation, is the key to transforming these paradigms.”
― Sarah Schulman, Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

“She felt excluded, unappreciated and unloved. Never had been loved.”
― Suzie Wilde, The Book of Bera

“I am examining the inaccurate claiming of “abuse” as a substitute for problem-solving. I make plain how this deflection of responsibility produces unnecessary separation and perpetuates anxiety while producing cruelty, shunning, undeserved punishment, incarceration, and occupation.”
― Sarah Schulman, Conflict Is Not Abuse: Overstating Harm, Community Responsibility, and the Duty of Repair

“She wrote two lines. Funeral: Denied. Reason: Unclear. She underlined the second sentence.”
― Belinda Kelderhouse, Ashes: A Collection of Original Short Stories

“The world is not a safe place for us. There are cartographers who came and made a map of the world as they saw it. They did not leave a place for us to write our names on that map. But here we are, we’re in it, this world that does not want us, a world that will never love us, a world that would choose to destroy us rather than make a space for us even though there is more than enough room. There is no room for us because it has already been decided that exile is our only choice.”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Dive into the Waters of the World

“[The Gaze of an Invisible Stranger]
In western Europe and north America
In the cities of cruelty, racism, freedom & democracy,
Cities of exile and alienation,
You see many young people
Who’d rather die than greet a stranger,
You observe how they master the art of ignoring
And not acknowledging the humanity of anyone
Who is not their height and weight
Whose features, skin color, and eyes are different than theirs…
In return, you observe cities filled with older people
Who delight at a nod or greeting from any stranger
Who are hungry for the slightest kind human touch
From any by passerby…
Making you, the Invisible Stranger, wonder:
Did these same elderly folks raise the young ones?
Are they merely inheriting a world of their creation?
Do the young ones realize
The isolation, loneliness, and desolation awaiting them tomorrow?

[Original poem published in Arabic on January 3, 2023, at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“It’s a sad fact of humans that we often gain a sense of belonging in a group by denying access to another.”
― CJ Dearlove

“Henri was distraught, and his heart felt so sad.
If nobody liked him, did it mean he was bad?

He stared at his reflection.
"I'm a Pig Dog!" he exclaimed.

He should have known sooner.
He felt so ashamed.”
― Samantha Childs, Henri and the Magnificent Snort : A Children's Book about Bullying, Belonging, and Love

“The more you know about exclusion, the more you think about belonging. We have a crisis of belonging in this country.”
― Pete Buttigieg

“Where are you from?"
Wherever I go,
people think I am from somewhere else!
The first question they ask
is that same sad question
that confirms and reminds me of not belonging anywhere:
“Where are you from?”
They are right to ask!
My grandma used to say
that I am from a time and a place that don’t exist anymore…
My friends tell me that I carry my home with me everywhere I go,
therefore, I belong to all times and all places!
As for me, I often wish I weren’t at all!

[Original poem published in Arabic on September 1, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“Colors"
A long time ago
our national IDs had the word “wheat”
next to the “skin color” category…
Some people’s colors were associated with
olives and chocolate…
Eye colors were described as honey and pistachio colored…
There was also the chestnut-colored hair –
all descriptions reminding us
that we are gifts from the same source:
Mother Nature’s womb!
As for the racist West,
it insists on reducing humanity
and painting it with politicized colors
of which only one color matters!
As for other colors,
they are made to be equivalent
to nobodies and nothingness…
They insist on turning this world into a snow-covered wasteland
Into one blank page and no more…

[Original poem published in Arabic on October 31, 2023 at ahewar.org]”
― Louis Yako

“Diversity is not the problem of humankind. The absence of love and unity is.”
― Michael Bassey Johnson, Stamerenophobia

“(Beware of Strangers)
As children, we are taught to beware of strangers, to refrain from approaching them.

As we grow older, we learn that no one is stranger than those we thought we’d known all our lives.

We learn that a stranger may carry more empathy, and understand us more deeply, and that affections from a stranger may be more sincere.

So, I ask: Can humanity and strangeness be synonymous? Could we say, 'I am a stranger; therefore I am'?

Can we truly feel alive without strange things, strange encounters, without strangers reminding us that our hearts and minds are still beating?

They teach us to avoid strangers, yet life teaches us that human awareness can only be born of the dagger of strangeness… that life is tasteless without mingling with strangers… that familiarity is opposed to life!

Thus, I loudly declare: A stranger I was born; a stranger I wish to remain! And I ask that you issue my death certificate the day I become familiar.

October 29, 2022”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“They look at the disabled in a different light, because in their minds, people with disabilities are different from themselves. They look at the disabled in one of two ways: with pity or exclusion. Despite everything, pity is slightly better than exclusion.”
― Jang Eun-Jin, No One Writes Back

“As soon as somebody starts talking about times when they felt excluded, betrayed, or wronged, stop and listen. When somebody is talking to you about pain in their life, even in those cases when you may think their pain is performative or exaggerated, it’s best not to try to yank the conversations back to your frame. Your first job is to stay within the other person’s standpoint to more fully understand how the world looks to them. Your next job is to encourage them to go into more depth about what they have just said. “I want to understand your point of view as much as possible. What am I missing here?” Curiosity is the ability to explore something even in stressful and difficult circumstances.

Remember that the person who is lower in any power structure than you are has a greater awareness of the situation than you do. A servant knows more about his master than the master knows about the servant. Someone who is being sat on knows a lot about the sitter—the way he shifts his weight and moves—whereas the sitter may not be aware that the sat-on person is even there.”
― David Brooks, How to Know a Person: The Art of Seeing Others Deeply and Being Deeply Seen

“To be a rebel is to court extinction.”
― Louise Brooks

“[Where Are You From?]

Wherever I go,
people assume
I am from somewhere else.
And the first question they ask
is always
that melancholy question,
the one that never fails
to remind us
how fragile belonging is:
"Where are you from?"
And they are right.
My grandmother used to say
that I am an ancient soul
from a time
and a place
that no longer exist.
My friends say
that I carry my home with me
wherever I go,
and that, for that reason,
I belong
to every place
and every age.
As for me,
more often than not,
I find myself wishing
I had never been at all.

1 September 2023”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“[Colors]

Once, our identity cards
described our skin
as the color of wheat.
Elsewhere, peoples' complexions
were compared
to olives
and chocolate.
There are eyes
the color of honey,
or green pistachios,
and hair
the color of chestnuts.
All these names
remind us
that we are born of nature
and among its most beautiful gifts.
Yet the racist West
insists on shrinking humanity,
painting it
in politicized colors
where only white
is deemed to matter.
And all other colors
become synonyms
for no one
and nothing,
until the world is reduced
to a field of snow,
or a blank white page,
and nothing more.

31 October 2023”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]

“[Twins in the Wound]

It took me years to understand
that we did not love one another
because we were compatible,
or made for each other,
but because we were broken
in the same places.
We are twins in the wound.
Our own people abandoned us,
and cast us out,
when they discovered
that we were not like the rest.
When they realized
that we refused to play
the game of the crushing
and the crushed.
And so, my love,
I hid you from everyone,
not out of shame,
but out of fear
of the cruelty
and ignorance
of the crowd.
And from loving you in secret,
I learned
that the only love that survives
is the love that masters
the art of hiding
from the eyes
of the watchful
and the hypocritical.

15 May 2024”
― Louis Yako, سرطان في كل مكان [Cancer Everywhere]