Racism
Ongoing discussion…
Racism
I do admire the terror which Negroes are able to inspire in the hearts of some members of the white proletariat and only wish (This is a rather personal confession.) that I possessed the ability to similarly terrorize. The Negro terrorizes simply by being himself;I, however, must browbeat a bit in order to achieve the same end. Perhaps I should
... See moreWalker Percy • A Confederacy of Dunces
Mackey borrows his title from Amiri Baraka, who aptly defines the history of white musicians profiting off of black music as turning “a verb into a noun.”
Cathy Park Hong • Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
We can say, to put it briefly, that up to the present mankind has known two principal forms of oppression, the one (slavery or serfdom) exercised in the name of armed force, the other in the name of wealth thus transformed into capital; what we have to determine is whether these are not now being succeeded by a new species of oppression, oppression
... See moreSimone Weil • Oppression and Liberty
At the same time, imagination must be decolonized. The dominant modes of imagining the future—technocratic, extractivist, growth-driven—are not universal. They are specific to white, masculine, WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic) subjectivities trained to equate imagination not only with control, scale and optimization, but... See more
Practical imagination
Being a Black American requires double consciousness, in the words of W. E. B. Du Bois, the habit of seeing from inside the logic of race and the lives of the racialized, and from the external superego of what it means to be American, with all its archetypes and interests.
Imani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
I’ve learned that this world has no commitments to my body. No one will try to understand it more than I will. I learned the necessity not only of listening to your own body but also of fighting for it.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
If you want to know if you’ve forgotten how to marvel, try staring at something beautiful for five minutes and see where your mind goes.
Cole Arthur Riley • This Here Flesh: Spirituality, Liberation, and the Stories That Make Us
black people who are the only black people at their jobs will feel a need to overcompensate and show their blackness explicitly.18 I’m not immune to this. In fact, I’m so susceptible to it that I know where to look for it.
Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson • Mo' Meta Blues: The World According to Questlove
I once heard that joy and happiness do different things to the body. Happiness, which works itself out in the sympathetic nervous system, makes you excitable and energetic. It’s important but fleeting, grounded in the immediacy of a moment or the whim of a feeling. Joy is more tranquil. It has to do with the parasympathetic nervous system, and it’s
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