All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep Quotes

“This apocalyptic process showed me that white supremacy, not democracy, is the American way that seeks to triumph and persevere against all odds.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“Hunter looked me in the eye and said, "Racism is not a priority to God.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“As I've mentioned before, the line between white people and other races has always been drawn in blood.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“To the privleged, peace means keeping a safe distance from the cries of the oppressed. They can't seem to differentiate social peace from their own personal comfort.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“We're expected to speak about the injustices that threaten our bodies the way someone would read the dosage instructions on a bottle of pills.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“Just because you don't understand something doesn't make it wrong," I replied.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“Knowledge doesn't move through our bodies the way it sits on this page - all organized in neat little lines.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“If submitting to white supremacy is good behavior, I want to misbehave with my every waking breath.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“Black America has watched this pattern of outrage management about Black suffering for years. We’ve seen police plant weapons on their victims, as they did in the case of Walter Scott (cover up). Media outlets tell us drugs were in someone’s system when the police murdered them, as they did with George Floyd (devalue). White people constantly try to reframe police brutality as a problem of “a few bad apples” instead of a systemic problem (reinterpret). When the grand jury refused to indict Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown, that became the end of the story for eager racism deniers, though the report also showed racial bias in the conduct of the Ferguson police department (use official channels). And there isn’t room for a full list of the times protesters of these injustices were met in the streets with flash-bang grenades and tanks (intimidate). Oppressors have perfected these tactics so well, they stop revolutions before they start, on a daily basis, without us ever noticing. Rank-and-file white people also try to stamp out Black rage wherever it emerges. They tell us Black anger is destructive and can’t be trusted. The truth is just the opposite. Black rage is trustworthy because it carries an analysis of present injustices. On a physiological level, anger is the body’s way of telling us that a boundary has been violated. It’s the natural emotional response humans have to being wronged, especially if that wrong is recurring and denied by the harmdoers. Therefore, Black rage is a healthy sign that we as a people recognize the crimes that have been, and continue to be, committed against us. Our anger is based in our personal experiences of anti-Black hostility in the white world and backed by our knowledge of our history.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—and Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives

“This might explain why white people are so defensive about their space. They'll insist at their dinner tables are not political. And while it may be true that they do no intentional political consciousness-raising at Sunday lunch, they nevertheless uphold and protect the dominant and pervasive anti-Black common sense of the wider society while they eat. Then they reinterpret our Black-experiences--which undermine the myths they crave--as "politics," a euphemism for impolite conversation. They gaslight us and call it keeping the peace.”
― Andre Henry, All the White Friends I Couldn't Keep: Hope—And Hard Pills to Swallow—About Fighting for Black Lives