Ain't Never Not Been Black Quotes

“The best way to understand me is
to eat my mother's cooking,
too much spice for most people
to stomach, but I like it that way,”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“I guess when you can't beat the heat, you pull it.”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“You cannot kill Blackness,
too much of it is wrapped in unshakeable joy.
And ain't that why they think we magic
in the first place?”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“it's about how poor Black boys
are treated as problems well
before we are treated as people”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“being a Black mother
means playing russian roulette
every time you send your kids out”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“she knows how easy our graduations
could have been funerals”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“And when Black people -
I mean, America has had enough,
we will burn this motherfucker down,
sip tea, call it a party, a revolution”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“America loves its hoods
but hates the hood”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“she says she has no clue what Grandmother did, that she must have worked some Black girl magic, some survival tactic she must've gotten from her mother who learned it from her mother before her, and so on. and I think that is an interesting way to say she could have been a medical doctor if not for the way the world tries to chew Black women with its mouth wide open.”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black

“I wanted to burn
this country down”
― Javon Johnson, Ain't Never Not Been Black