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101 " But you know, the word ignorance has an even more important word at its heart: ignore. And I don’t think it’s right to ignore the truth any longer. "
― Jodi Picoult , Small Great Things
102 " see Joziah?” Denyce said. “He all that.” Nia popped a bubble with her gum. “I heard he’s strapped.” “What?” Rachel said. “That’s wack.” Sometimes it seemed to Ruth that Rachel and her friends spoke a different language. “He ain’t got no gun,” Denyce said. “He just like to tell people he do.” A gun? Ruth didn’t realize she’d spoken out loud until the girls all stared at her. “Oh, look,” Nia said. “We shocked your baby sister.” If Mama knew Rachel "
103 " What if the puzzle of the world was a shape you didn’t fit into? And the only way to survive was to mutilate yourself, carve away your corners, sand yourself down, modify yourself to fit? "
104 " I remember reading a novel once that said the native Alaskans who came in contact with the white missionaries thought, at first, they were ghosts. And why shouldn't they have thought that? Like ghosts, white people move effortlessly through through boundaries and borders. Like ghosts, we can be anywhere we want to be. "
105 " If you ask me who Ruth Jefferson was a month ago, I would have said she's a good nurse, and she's a good mother. But now I have people telling me I wasn't a good nurse. And if I can't put a casserole on the table and cloth on your back, then I have to second guess myself as a mother too. If you don't let me do this, if you don't let me take care of you, then I don't know who i'm suppose to be anymore. "
106 " Most of us think the word racism is synonymous with prejudice. But racism is more than just discrimination based on skin color. It's also about who has institutional power. Just as racism creates disadvantages for people of color that makes success harder to achieve, it also gives advantages to white people that makes success easier to achieve. It's hard to see those advantages, much less own up to them. And that, I realized, was why I had to write this book. When it comes to social justice, the role of the white ally is not to be a savior or a fixer. Instead, the role of the ally is to find other white people and talk to make them see that many of the benefits they have enjoyed in life are direct results of the fact that someone else did not have the same benefits. "
107 " every baby is born beautiful. It’s what we project on them that makes them ugly. "
108 " Anger, it turns out, is a renewable source of fuel. "
109 " I look at her. “The first one sounds fair. The second one is fair. It’s equal to give a printed test to two kids. But if one’s blind and one’s sighted, that’s not true. You ought to give one a Braille test and one a printed test, which both cover the same material. All "
110 " Is it better not knowing the ugly truth, and pretending it doesn’t exist? Or is it better to confront it, even though that knowledge may be a weight you carry around forever? I am about to give her my opinion when Eliza is "
111 " Babies are such blank slates. They don’t come into this world with the assumptions their parents have made, or the promises their church will give, or the ability to sort people into groups they like and don’t like. "
112 " Bad things happen to good people every day.” — "
113 " Equality is treating everyone the same. But equity is taking differences into account, so everyone has a chance to succeed.” I look at her. “The first one sounds fair. The second one is fair. It’s equal to give a printed test to two kids. But if one’s blind and one’s sighted, that’s not true. You ought to give one a Braille test and one a printed test, which both cover the same material. "
114 " My sister likes to play the victim. We’ve had some pretty heated exchanges about that before. If you don’t want to be seen as a stereotype, then the way I see it, don’t be one. But to my sister, that means playing a white man’s game, and being who they want her to be, instead of being unapologetically herself. "
115 " Now I know: adulthood is a line drawn in the sand. At some point, your child will be standing on the other side. "
116 " All mothers worry, but Black mothers, we have to worry a little bit more. “Even walking can be dangerous. Just being can be dangerous, if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time. "
117 " That if our legacy is not entitlement, it must be hope. Because if it’s not, then we become the shiftless, the wandering, the conquered. We become what they think we are. — "
118 " The loneliest creature on earth is a whale that has spent more than twenty years calling out for a mate, I read, but whose voice is so different from those of the other whales that none of them ever respond. "
119 " where all the differences in schooling and money and skin colour evaporated like mirages in a desert. Where everyone was equal, and it was just one woman, helping another. "
120 " Must you argue everything?""Yeah. I'm a lawyer. "