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The Black Kids QUOTES

The Black Kids QUOTES

1 " They don't fucking see us even when they're looking right at us. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

2 " We have to walk around being perfect all the time just to be seen as human. Don't you ever get tired of being a symbol? Don't you ever just want to be human? "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

3 " It's not just about Rodney. It's about all of us. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

4 " I feel ashamed that black people are both the agents and the victims of this chaos, and I don't want to be thought of like that. But I'm also ashamed of myself for thinking I'm somehow better. The shame I feel in my guts, pulsing, spiraling; but also everything feels very far away. I'm black, but my black is different from that of those rioters on TV. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

5 " It's the lyric about hate multiplying that gets to me most. It's like nothing ever changes. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

6 " What do you do when the people you love no longer feel like home? "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

7 " You can't tell people to pull up on bootstraps when half of them never had any boots to begin with, never even had the chance to get them. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

8 " Because a bunch of dudes beating on one dude who was already on the ground until he's brain damaged and broken is wrong. Because prosecuting people differently for the same exact crimes because of skin color is wrong. Because some people being able to buy private islands while other people sleep outside on the ground is wrong. Because knowingly destroying poor communities with drugs let in to fund wars against foreign regimes is fundamentally wrong. Because even though you finally enact a Civil Rights Act not even thirty years ago, it doesn't erase centuries of unequal wealth, unequal access, unequal schooling, unequal living conditions, unequal policing. You can't tell people to pull up on bootstraps when half of them never had any boots to begin with, never even had the chance to get them. Or when you let people burn whole, thriving black communities to the ground and conveniently forget about it. Because maybe the problem isn't only with "bad" people, maybe the problem is with the whole system. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

9 " Sometimes being different means hiding pieces of yourself away so other people's mean can't find them. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

10 " When you've known somebody too long, it's like they're talking to a version of you from years ago, even though you've updated all your software. You're the same program, except also you're not. It's a little easier around somebody who doesn't know you as well, who doesn't remember that one bad haircut from fourth grade, or the first kid you had a crush on. Somebody who doesn't feel comfortable calling your parents by their first names. Somebody who doesn't know your parents' names at all. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

11 " We all sew a few sequins on our stories to make them shine brighter. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

12 " Sadness for them is a cause and effect, not simply a way to be. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

13 " Morgan gives me a dirty look. I know that she resents me and resents being here. She thinks I don’t care. But it’s not that; it’s that there’s so very much to care about, so much to feel, and instead of trying to sort out what’s in my head, sometimes I don’t want to feel any of it at all. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

14 " Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver, the other is gold. A circle’s round, it has no end, that’s how long I will be your friend. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

15 " Latasha was black. Latasha was a girl. Latasha was my age. She went into a liquor store to buy orange juice, and the Korean woman at the counter thought she was stealing. She wasn’t. They got into a fight, and as Latasha tried to walk away, the woman at the counter shot her in the back of the head. Over orange juice. Her killer got probation, community service, and a five hundred dollar fine. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

16 " I wonder if growing up in a war zone disarms you so you can't even tell why your heart races, just the constant awareness that it does. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

17 " Sometimes it's hard being a girl, and it's hard being black. Being both is like carrying a double load, but you're not supposed to complain about it. There are so many things you have to remember about how to be. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

18 " On Friday nights, before I got old enough to make bad decisions at other people’s houses, I used to sit with Lucia as she got ready to make hers. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

19 " Nobody calls boys sluts. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids

20 " I'm beginning to think that's kind of what being an adult is. Learning that sometimes people are a little bit wrong, but not for the reasons you think they are, and also a little bit right, and you try to take the good with the bad. "

― Christina Hammonds Reed , The Black Kids