Matthew Bizer’s Reviews > They Can't Kill Us Until They Kill Us > Status Update

“I want us to honor the living Black women who fight and I want us to fight for the Black women who no longer have the honor of living. I want us to respect the legacies that were remarkable by virtue of boundary-pushing and I want us to respect the legacies that were remarkable by virtue of being alive and loved. I want these statements to not be "brave," or "unique." I want them to be expected.”

That essay about Rumours was so, so powerful

“The truth is, once you understand that there are people who do not want you to exist, that is a difficult card to remove from the table. […] For many, there are reminders of this every day, every hour. It makes “Alright,” the emotional bar and the song itself, the best there is. It makes existence itself a celebration.”

I just wept over an essay called “Fall Out Boy Forever”

Music is life and life is music. Music is everything and everything is music. Hanif gets this better than I do, and each essay adds a new dimension to that simple truth with heartfelt and urgent prose. I’m obsessed with this book.

I frequently find myself scrawling down or taking a quick picture of a quote or paragraph that I simply must remember, statements that I need to make sure stay with me.