blake

“On each hand that day, my uncle wore a single lapis ring. I was curious and asked him questions. Later he sent me articles about the symbolic meanings of lapis. I told him that I live according to one of his precepts, that as long as I can read, I can teach myself to do anything. Even survive a broken heart. And I have found something out along this way of grief-reading the sound and color and text. We Black people are not quite like other Americans. We do not live in the same fantasy that we might evade death by collecting things like dollars, houses, fences, and passports. But we are as human as humans come. The incomprehensible keeps happening. Death comes fast, frequent and unfair. And we're still here. We know how to breathe underwater. Living after death.”
― Imani Perry, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People

“Melancholy is part of social movement, as is restraint. They are companions. The work of organizing for freedom requires a management of rage that can break your heart. There is no good reason one should have to endure spittle and bombs, insult, dogs, and jail in order to achieve simple legal recognition.”
― Imani Perry, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People

“Movement is divine word. To call organizing for freedom "the movement" was a strike of genius. The moves in our culture of art and performance-be they dancing, playing jazz, blues, or hambone, singing or hoofing-are all the art of living. And forgive us, Lord, for the Western sacrilege of sometimes being mere spectators to that divinity. It beckons participation.”
― Imani Perry, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People

“Black watching, worry, caution, are wise because what if the ones holding out their hands don't, in fact, shake yours warmly, but instead snatch you into snares? And you lose your balance, gone in an instant, like a fly in Venus flytrap.”
― Imani Perry, Black in Blues: How a Color Tells the Story of My People