Black Friend Quotes

“I demand to be taken as seriously as a clown.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“I am very self-conscious about the way that I look, in part because I am a woman who also happens to be conscious.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“Poetry is cringe.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“Personally, I long to be a canceled rich man because that is just a vacation.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“My art is not about success. My art is about me—my life, my experiences, my perspective. That is my cheat code. I remind myself that I am one of a kind. I am special. I have something to say. And even if no one cares, I do. The only way I could be an imposter is if I’m not true to myself.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“external validation is a bottomless pit—there’s no amount that’ll make you feel whole if you do not love yourself.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“I do not exist just to move plot. While I am a supportive friend, I am not a supporting character. I am the protagonist of my perfectly imperfect story.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“We are wiser to the fact that having a black friend is not a defense against accusations of racism, just like having a black child does not absolve Thomas Jefferson from being a fugly hater.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“If my career is a living testament of anything, let it be that one opportunity is not enough. It is a series of cracked-open windows and doors that have gotten me into a position of what I would describe as fleeting power. We need as many opportunities as possible. To fail, to be bad, and then to eventually succeed.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“This unintended consequence of performing unity exemplifies the ways in which people can mean well and still do absolutely wrong. Best-case scenario, the black square shows your network that you at least care about black people enough to post a photo, which I should note is free and easy. Unfortunately, worst-case scenario, this insignificant action can set forth a tidal wave of trouble for the grassroots activists on the ground doing the work. Performing solidarity is inherently selfish. Its very point is to virtue-signal that you are a good person, because it matters to you that people know you are a good person.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“But intention is not an excuse for impact.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“You can't have my body, but you can have my body of work.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“Logic serves that if I never age, I can't be thrown away.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“The last time I visited LA, I was at a cool Hollywood party where suddenly the host directed guests to look outside. Why? Because it was raining ash and if you tilted your head and hated Greta Thunberg, it looked like snow.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“All of this resulted in my classmates laughing at me, which, thanks to what my therapist describes as habitual disassociation, I did not process in real time.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“I am very self-conscious about the way that I look, in part because I am a woman who also happens to be conscious. Since birth, every commercial, every magazine, every piece of media I have encountered has socialized me to hate every body part.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“Toni Morrison once said that racism was a distraction. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being, wasting your time proving to others what you know to be true.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“No disrespect to cat people, as I do identify as an indoor cat—emotionally withholding, vindictive, and a lover of tuna.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“If you are wondering what gives me the unique qualifications to write about the complex subject of race in America, the answer is: vibes.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“Listening to the voice of a woman who seemed to belong to everyone but herself reminded me of her strength, because even as Britney suffered in isolation, her words moved millions—excuse me, billions—to dance. She reminds me that there are some souls that you cannot keep down. Some people are destined to be great.”
― Ziwe,, Black Friend: Essays

“Blaming individuals is fun; deconstructing centuries of oppression requires so much boring reading.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“Personally, I long to be a canceled rich man because that is just a vacation.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“In a televised conversation, Maya Angelou once asked the famed writer, “How do you cope with success? And after that—if you want to weave them together it is fine with me—how do you cope with despair? Despair in front of the fact that the world is saying you’re a success. Okay, so—okay?” James Baldwin: I think but I don’t know. Well, in my own case, you know, in a paradoxical fashion, which you cannot possibly explain, what is called success in my own case, right, came out of despair. Maya Angelou: No, of course. Of course, life out of death, death out of life. James Baldwin: That’s how you learn to live with despair. You live with despair. Success, I must say, is a little like finding yourself on a runaway horse, because you never see it coming, and also, in a very serious way, it is not possible, it is not possible, for an artist to be a success. You know? Maya Angelou: Would you say that again? James Baldwin: I said it is not possible for an artist to be a success. Maya Angelou: Thank you. James Baldwin: Once you think of yourself as a success . . . Maya Angelou: You’re finished. Finito. James Baldwin: Forget it. Maya Angelou: You know what I find is that you begin to believe your own publicity. James Baldwin: You begin to take your identity from other people— Maya Angelou: — from somebody else, and you stop experimenting because somebody says well when you did so-and-so, that was such a success, why don’t you do that again?”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“I get a sick satisfaction out of watching someone think they are right only to be proven wrong by cold hard facts. I never get an apology, but the sweet gratification of watching them fix that stupid look on their fugly face helps me sleep at night.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“I'm lucky because even if I have no heir, I can appreciate that you will all take these words with you on your path. You can't have my body, but you can have my body of work.”
― Ziwe, Black Friend: Essays

“With this policing, I had a distinct understanding of what it meant to be a woman in the world: It was mid at best.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“Blaming individuals is fun; deconstructing centuries of oppression requires so much boring reading. One tactic is like getting stitches, and the other is like getting a transplant of every vital organ—even if the face is the same, it is a totally different person.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“And when they do, it is important to remember that they usually result in an incredibly privileged person temporarily experiencing slightly less privilege than they were accustomed to, which is still a very high baseline of privilege compared with the rest of the world. Personally, I long to be a canceled rich man because that is just a vacation.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“One time, PETA compared their fight for animal rights to Martin Luther King Jr.’s fight for civil rights. Adopt don’t shop, fur is murder, blah blah blah, all that stuff . . . I love animals, do not get me wrong, but there is no way that Hello Kitty has done anything as iconic as writing “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.” Far”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays

“Celine Dion is a black Chow Chow and everything I could have ever asked for if what I asked for was a guard dog that did not enjoy the company of people and was too cute to intimidate strangers.”
― Ziwe Fumudoh, Black Friend: Essays