"Never waste your time trying to explain who you are to people who are committed to misunderstanding you."
— dream hampton (via dreamhampton1)
"It’s really nice to see British women of colour in really positive leading roles. I don’t think we see that enough. It’s not about creating an issue and it’s not a racially motivated film which is so refreshing. But, at the same time it’s there and it’s representative, and I know from myself as a woman of colour growing up in this country, that’s really important, just to show that without labouring the point."
— Lenora Crichlow on Fast Girls (via sunrayravine)
(Source: press.optimumreleasing.net, via accio-afros)
"When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring then unity."
— Edwidge Danticat (via basseyworld)
"
Look, she says: “I used to think there was a Republican attitude and language that, although I vehemently disagreed with it because I thought it was fraudulent, it wasn’t dumb. It made some sort of sense. If you really and truly think that the United States is free, and capital is free – none of that’s true, but if you really believe it – you can develop an argument that’s not embarrassing. But they don’t do that any more. They use coded words. Did you see that the other day – Rick Santorum said ‘the man in the Whitehouse is a government nig – uh?”
Yes, he says he misspoke. Morrison bursts out laughing. “He said he didn’t say that! They used to say ‘government nigger’ when black people got jobs in the post office, stuff like that. And that’s what he was saying. And earlier he said, ‘I don’t want to take your money and give it to bla – people.’ He catches himself right at the vowel. Man. I guess it was worse in South Africa before Mandela, but I can’t do it any more.” She sighs. “At some level, you know, it hurts. It really hurts.”
"— Toni Morrison (via howtobeterrell)
(via seanpadilla)
"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’"
"
And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:
we are the ones we have been waiting for
"— June Jordan (via dreamhampton1)
"If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it."
— Zora Neale Hurston (via psych-quotes)
(Source: psych-facts, via theecolossus)
“Look at me. I’m skinny, I have a big nose, no tits and no ass, but in a room full of beautiful women, I would still leave with the most gorgeous guy.”
— Zoe Saldana
(Source: squibberx, via fuckyeahfamousblackgirls)
"i wanted to write a poem that rhymes, but the revolution doesn’t lend itself to be-bopping…so i thought again and it occurred to me maybe i shouldn’t write at all, but clean my gun and check my kerosene supply. perhaps these are not poetic times at all."
— nikki giovanni (via negrosunshine)
(via bluesbayou)
"Her blackness is fine, the blackness of her skin; the blackness of her mind.
Her beauty cannot be measured with standards of a colonized mind."
— Me’shell Ndegéocello (via blklght)
(Source: samljackson, via blackculture)
