Uncensored Quotes

“Many black intellectuals spoke about the experience of racism mainly, and sometimes exclusively, from a black male perspective, highlighting the various ways their humanity had been degraded and denied. While this discussion was something I cared about deeply, it was rarely balanced with one about all the unique ways in which black women have suffered. Even the scholars who spoke about race without focusing so much on the particular experience of black men still failed to fully capture and dissect the compounded challenges black women faced as they dealt with racism and sexism. The result of discussions of race being unfairly tilted toward the male point of view is that the experiences of black women have taken a backseat to those of black men, although they've suffered in ways that black men haven't. Racism and sexism were stacked against them. And too often they've borne the brunt of the very masculinity that has been historically debased in black men when black men asserted their power over the only people they could - black women...The hard truth is that black men have contributed to these struggles both subtly and overtly...we contribute to the degradation of black women by glorifying the kind of common rap that reduces them to bitches, hoes, and body parts.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“I was also aware of the fact that in the black community, respectability politics was often seen as being at odds with what it meant to be "authentically black." To me, there was not such thing as being authentically black. OF course, being seen as "authentically white" wasn't something my white peers had to concern themselves with.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“As much as I may have resented it at times, the reality of racism meant that, if I cared about my own success, I had no choice but to seek the approval of whites and care what they thought of me.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“The hardest questions to face but the easiest to answer was why I didn't already feel valuable. When the one person who was supposed to love me unconditionally told me over and over that I was a worthless, ungrateful punk, it became hard to ever truly believe that I was good enough...And now I was trying to fill the void this left inside me with knowledge, and therefore value. Over the years I'd told myself that if I could talk to enough people and make the ideal impression enough times, they would like me. My credentials and skills, and ultimately my knowledge, would make me worth liking. And if enough people liked me, I would matter. I'd be worth something.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“To this day, I cannot for the life of me understand why they questioned me in front of her. My mother had intimidated me since I was a toddler. I was absolutely terrified. Of course I lied, and I made sure to lie well.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“Until I told the truth to Lisa and Reanne, I don't think I let myself fully absorb how bad all of this really was. I knew my mom was sick and that her behavior was deeply wrong, and I felt like I hated her at times for some of the things she said and did to me. But seeing the faces of these two grown women absolutely crumble as they listened to me talk about what I'd been through - women who were closer to my mom's age than my own and who had surely experienced their own hardships - I finally registered how others perceived my mom's actions.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored

“On nights like these, I went to bed wishing that I'd never wake up. I was too young to have any real understanding of death. I just wanted the pain to end. If she was this mad at me, I reasoned, then I must have been fundamentally bad, and maybe God was mad at me, too. I was afraid that if I did die, I'd go to hell, but I wasn't sure it would be much worse.”
― Zachary Wood, Uncensored