Extraits

Difficult to “move on” from any site of suffering if that suffering goes unacknowledged and undescribed.”

If whiteness is an illusion, on what else can a poor man without prospects pride himself?”

We don’t always have to judge difference or categorize it or criminalize it. We don’t have to take it personally. We can also just let it be.”

Life is complex, conceptually dominated by binaries but never wholly contained by them.”

This extraordinary story you hold in your hands was specifically intended as “an experiment in the removal of all racial codes from a narrative about two characters of different races for whom racial identity is crucial.”

it’s hard to admit a shared humanity with your neighbor if they will not come with you to reexamine a shared history.”

“To believe in blackness solely as a negative binary in a prejudicial racialized structure, and to further believe that this binary is and will forever be the essential, eternal, and primary organizing category of human life, is a pessimist's right but an activist's indulgence. Meanwhile, there is work to be done

Easy, I thought. Everything is so easy for them. They think they own the world.”

Maybe I am different now, Twyla. But you’re not. You’re the same little state kid who kicked a poor old black lady when she was down on the ground. You kicked a black lady and you have the nerve to call me a bigot.”

Two little girls who knew what nobody else in the world knew—how not to ask questions. How to believe what had to be believed. There was politeness in that reluctance and generosity as well. Is your mother sick too? No, she dances all night. Oh—and an understanding nod.”