Sara > Recent Status Updates

"I've always found that traffic on a bridge brings everyone closer to their own personal edge. Inside each car, a snapshot of a breaking point, drivers looking out toward the water and wondering What if? Could there be another way out?"

"We need to acknowledge that an important part of interrupting the cycle of oppression is constant reeducation, and then sharing what we learn with the next generation."

"Sadly, many Black students never get to college, alienated from the process of education long before high school graduation. They may never get access to the information that might have helped them expand their definition of what it means to be Black and, in the process, might have helped them stay in school. Young people are developmentally ready for this information in adolescence. We ought to provide it."

"We need to understand that in racially mixed settings, racial grouping is a developmental process in response to an environmental stressor, racism."

“We take information from the past and project in onto the future.”

"We are better able to resist the negative impact of oppressive messages when we see them coming than when they are invisible to us. While some may think it is a burden to children to encourage this critical consciousness, I consider it a gift."

"You might as well tell the truth if your going to waste your time saying you love me."

"I step closer. 'So you're innocent?'
'Yes,' he says, so flustered furious that I knew he believes it. So certain he could swear it -
to his lawyer, to a jury, to God -
-and never think he was lying. Because to him it was nothing.
She was nothing."

"'Tomorrow,' I say, the same as Duncan said, except he was circling his troops to weather the storm and I'm circling mine to bring it."

"He takes me into his arms. Not like Duncan did - not like I'm something he owns. Like I'm something he treasures."

"Luck's a whore. She fucks us all eventually."

"He doesn't have to give a fuck. He can smash anything he wants, be careless and violent and dirty, and tomorrow he'll have something new to break."

"'He wants to be honorable, but not as much as he wants approval,' says Mads, staring down at the painted-green field. 'He'll sell out enough to stay in with them, but he can still pretend he's innocent.'"

"I mean those boys didn't turn me into anything I wasn't before."

"There's more she wants to tell me, and the words cling to her like dust and rot: who I was and who I am and who I should be. I'm supposed to listen. I'm supposed to believe her."

"Without vision our actions are mere impulses, but with vision they become creative acts of will in the service of transformation."

"Because rationalizations have been created to justify the social arrangements, it is easy to believe everything is as it should be. Dominants 'can avoid awareness because their explanation of the relationship becomes so well integrated in other terms; they can even believe that both they and the subordinate group share the same interests and, to some extent, a common experience.'"

"When we think about our multiple identities, most of us will find that we are both dominant and targeted at the same time. But it is the targeted identities that hold our attention and the dominant identities that often go unexamined."

"Common across these examples is that in the areas where a person is a member of a the dominant or advantaged social group, the category is usually not mentioned. That element of the person's identity is so taken for granted that it goes without comment. It is taken for granted by them because it is taken for granted by the dominant culture."

"Perhaps fellow psychologist Linda James Myers is on the right track. She refers to two group of people, those of acknowledged African descent and those of unacknowledged African descent, reminding us that we can all trace the roots of our common humanity to Africa."

"But the fact of White privilege means that Whites have greater access to societal institutions in need of transformation. To whom much is given, much is required."

"If one defines racism as racial prejudice, the answer is yes. People of color can and do have racial prejudices. However, if one defines racism as a system of advantage based on race, the answer is no. People of color are not racist because they do not systematically benefit from racism."

"To say that it is not our fault does not relieve us of responsibility however."

"Consequently, most of the early information we receive about 'others' - people racially. religiously, or socioeconomically different from ourselves - does not come as the result of firsthand experience. The secondhand information we do receive has often been distorted, shaped by cultural stereotypes, and left incomplete."

"Science confronts hypotheses with evidence through the process of disapproval and I was more than willing to be proved wrong especially if it meant Roman was okay."

"Earlier, in reference to the election of President Obama in 2008, I spoke of "birthing pains" because something new was emerging and perhaps still is. But let us be clear: the moment of birth can be a dangerous time. And I think we are living in a dangerous time and should take that danger seriously."

"Robert P. Jones, the CEO of PRRI, writes, 'The chief obstacle to having an intelligent, or even intelligible, conversation across the racial divide is that on average white Americans. . . talk mostly to other white people.'"

"'so I try and remember the manners Mom taught me. Mostly washing dishes voluntarily. That has worked well for me my whole life, everywhere."

"When we are afraid, we quickly begin to categorize people by 'who is for me' and 'who is against me.' We start to think and act in terms of 'us' and 'them'. We withdraw into our circles of safety, and we attack those we believe are outside that circle and who pose a threat."

"Yet the presidential election of 2008, and subsequently of 2012, gave that story a new ending. It seemed that we could no longer predict the winner based on race. The possibility of an unpredictable ending make for a much better story and a much better society. But, as noted, it also generates anxiety and, for some, a sense of threat."