Things I Should Have Told My Daughter Quotes

“This society gives points for pregnancy and for birthing, but after that, we isolate the mother and the baby and expect them to function the best way they can. It is very anti-family, anti-woman, anti-person!”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“It is so important to be conscious even when it makes you realize how much negative stuff you have enjoyed all your life until you realized it was all anti you.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“I need some time to myself by myself! There must be time for thought and music and peace and solitude! Also: No one can keep a creative house and work every day from nine to five. Can’t be done, folks. Ain’t no way.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“I think that a black poet can do one of two things for his people: 1. Reflect the beauty of their black life; whole, broken and mending. 2. Lead them in a righteous direction by showing them the path and what lies ahead in liberation and victory. If you call yourself a black poet and you ain’t doin’ that, you ain’t bein’ truthful and you ain’t bein’ fair and in general, you ain’t doin’ nothin’ for yr people/yr self/the struggle/the nation/the community. In short, you ain’t doin’ shit.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“Liberation is a constant struggle. And this is a new year.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs

“Oppression is built on
a series of assumptions, and if they begin to crumble, the system is in grave
danger. The assumptions have got to be just as strong with the oppressed as
with the oppression mongers. The oppressed must feel inferior and then he
will act inferior.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons & Love Affairs

“saw you, Sally Hemings is the name of it. It’s in paperback for $3.25. She was Thomas Jefferson’s slave and mistress for twenty-plus years. A really good book with real”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“White folks don’t have to do anything to you specifically. After they do it to a couple of other people that you know about, you are so incapacitated by fear that you ain’t no use to the struggle anyhow.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“Because Library School will take up two whole years of my life, I have decided to keep a journal of events/feelings/reactions to it as long as I can stick it out. Judging from today, that might not be too long, but I will start with a reaction to yesterday so it will not be forgotten.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“It’s like the Léon Damas story about the black man on the bus who felt bad because the only other black man on the same bus was ugly and sweaty and dirty and ill-kempt. It is hard to express it. So sad.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“I need the words to find the music!”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs

“JULY 22, 1971 This morning on Hunter Street, I passed a black woman at the bus stop. She was simply dressed in a green-and-white checked shirtwaist dress. It was a little too big and little bit too long, but not really sloppy. It had a little fabric-covered belt to match, too. But on top of her head was a huge, platinum blond wig. It was curled and flipped and teased and in general fixed to look as hideous as possible. It wasn’t even pulled down very far. It was just sitting there like it was a bird who had decided to light there and visit with her for a while. She had a very serious expression and she was looking down the street intently for the bus. The wig was looking, too, but I don’t think it was looking for the bus. It looked like it had had a hard night and would welcome an Alka Seltzer.”
― Pearl Cleage, Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons, & Love Affairs