All Boys Aren’t Blue Quotes

“When people ask me how I got into activism, I often say, “The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.” If I wasn’t gonna fight for me, who else was?”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Navigating in a space that questions your humanity isn’t really living at all. It’s existing. We all deserve more than just the ability to exist.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“You sometimes don’t know you exist until you realize someone like you existed before.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Symbolism gives folks hope. But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, “Look how far you have come” rather than admitting, “Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“Love who you want to love, and do it unapologetically, including that face you see every day in the mirror.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“You’ll find that people often use the excuse “it was the norm” when discussing racism, homophobia, and anything else in our history they are trying to absolve themselves of. Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed. Folks use this excuse because they are often unwilling to accept how full of phobias and -isms they are themselves—or at least how they benefit from social structures that privilege them.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“many of us connect with each other through trauma and pain: broken people finding other broken people in the hopes of fixing one another.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“I believe that the dominant society establishes an idea of what “normal” is simply to suppress differences, which means that any of us who fall outside of their “normal” will eventually be oppressed.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“American history is truly the greatest fable ever written.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“Your name is one of the most important pieces of your identity. It is the thing that you own. It is attached to every piece of work that you put into the world. Your name holds power when you walk into a room. No two people with the same name are the same person. It’s important that, like everything else you grow to love in life, your name is something you appreciate as well.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“Find a flaw, deficit, or disadvantage in our community, and I can find a system that oppressed us and made it that way.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“The first person you are ever an activist for is yourself.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“The greatest tool you have in fighting the oppression of your Blackness and queerness and anything else within your identity is to be fully educated on it.

Knowledge is truly your sharpest weapon in a world hell-bent on telling you stories that are simply not true.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Love isn’t a word that we have to use with each other, because for us it has always been an action. We have always been able to show our love for each other through our care. Through our ability to often be on the same page. And even if we aren’t, through our ability to get right back on it within hours.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Anytime I’m dealing with something personally, I look to see which ancestor before me already discussed it. I don’t let their work dictate my every action, but I know that I am in a much better postion when I am informed by their work. I use my history as a tool to fight against my marginalization.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“I often think about a statement Viola Davis made when she won her first Oscar. Something along the lines of encouraging people to go to the graveyard and dig up all the dead bodies in order to hear and tell the stories of those whose dreams were never realized. Those are the stories she’s interested in telling. Although that is valid, I must challenge it. This book is proof positive that you don’t need to go to the graveyard to find us.

Many of us are still here. Still living and waiting for our stories to be told—to tell them ourselves. We are the living that have always been here but have been erased. We are the sons and brothers, daughters and sisters, and others that never get a chance to see ourselves nor to raise our voices to ears that need to hear them.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“But I’ve come to learn that symbolism is a threat to actual change—it’s a chance for those in power to say, “Look how far you have come” rather than admitting, “Look how long we’ve stopped you from getting here.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“I fought hard to fit in, but my spirit fought harder to be out.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“In our society, a person's sex is based on their genitalia. That decision is then used to assume a person's gender as boy or girl, rather than a spectrum of identities that the child should be determining for themselves.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“The boy who had struggled to find friends for so long finally had a whole group of people he could call his brothers.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“I think the funniest part about that argument is that it doesn't matter if your queerness is by birth or by choice. It is who you are, and no one should have the right to change that.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“When you are a child that is different, there always seems to be a “something.” You can’t switch, you can’t say that, you can’t act this way. There is always a something that must be erased—and with it, a piece of you. The fear of being that vulnerable again outweighs the happiness that comes with being who you are, and so you agree to erase that something.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“Saying that something was “a norm” of the past is a way not to have to deal with its ripple effects in the present. It removes the fact that hate doesn’t just stop because a law or the time changed.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“I learned that kids who saw me as different didn’t have an issue until society taught them to see my differences as a threat… It wasn’t them shaming me as much as it was those raising them who taught them to shame others with those qualities. Most kids aren’t inherently mean. Their parents, however, can make them mean.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Gender is one of the biggest projections placed onto children at birth- despite families having no idea how the baby will truly turn out.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Knowledge is truly your sharpest weapon in a world hell-bent on telling you stories that are simply not true. Honest Abe lied to you. I won’t.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren't Blue

“We are not as different as you think, and all our stories deserve to be celebrated and told.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“There is truly something to be said about the fact that you sometimes can't see yourself if you can't see other people like you existing, thriving, working.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“When you are a child that is different, there always seems to be a "something". You can't switch, you can't say that, you can't act this way. There is always a something that must be erased - and with it, a piece of you.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue

“Many of us are always in a state of working through something–always in a state of "becoming" a more aware version of self.”
― George M. Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue