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Negroland QUOTES

Negroland QUOTES

1 " Lawrence Otis Graham is a sprightly gossip in the Clamorgan mode: he writes largely for white magazines and is considered something of an upstart by old-line blacks. His 1999 Our Kind of People: Inside America’s Black Upper Class is a cross-country social whirl of interviews and personal anecdotes. Graham chronicles our old ways, and makes sure to certify their current value with the status symbols of integration; “exclusive” and “prestigious” schools and neighborhoods; “impeccable,” even “inspiring” professional credentials; friendships "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

2 " Caucasian privilege lounged and sauntered, draped itself casually about, turned vigilant and commanding, then cunning and devious. We "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

3 " Negro privilege had to be circumspect: impeccable but not arrogant; confident yet obliging; dignified, not intrusive. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

4 " Being agreeable’ is the highest duty of any human being mingling with other people….Practicing good manners should be as natural as displaying the teeth”). "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

5 " too, rolled and "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

6 " Regularly denounce Caucasians, whose behavior toward us, and all dark-skinned people, proved they did not morally deserve their privilege. We "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

7 " Cyprian Clamorgan ends "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

8 " Nadinola Bleaching Cream: “Have you noticed that the nicest things happen to girls with lighter, lovelier complexions? "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

9 " Striving ardently to be what they were and were not. Behold the Race Flaneur: the bourgeois rebel who goes slumming, and finds not just adventure but the objective correlative for his secret despair. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

10 " You are a single woman; you intend to remain one. You’ve acquired enough sexual experience to feel you belong to your times. You do not have children; you never intended to. Sustained romantic intensities have not been for you. Your explanation (not an untrue one,though not quite sufficient) is that you have let yourself be shaped by so many conventions, expectations, and requirements (institution’s, people’s), by so much dread of disapproval, that the discipline of solitude—severe solitude—has been required to give you the sense of an independent selfhood. The intensities of friendship suit you better. Friendship’s choreography is for multiple partners: for varied groups and surprisingly sustained duets. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

11 " White people wanted to be white just as much as we did. They worked just as hard at it. They failed more often. But they could pass, so no one objected. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

12 " I hate when I'm supposed to be having fun and Race singles me out for special chores and duties. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

13 " Elbow grease" is not a metaphor. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

14 " And out in the wide wide world, the famous women we gazed upon never stopped reminding us that we must cherish that generic female future. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

15 " What I would have to do later, starting in college and in the years following, to become a person of inner consequence: break that fawning inner self into pieces. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

16 " So I won’t trap myself into quantifying which matters more, race, or gender, or class. Race, gender, and class are basic elements of one’s living. Basic as utensils and clothing; always in use; always needing repairs and updates. Basic as body and breath, justice and reason, passion and imagination. So the question isn’t “Which matters most?,” it’s “How does each matter?” Gender, race, class; class, race, gender—your three in one and one in three. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

17 " Privilege is provisional. Privilege can be denied, withheld, offered grudgingly and summarily withdrawn. Entitlement is impervious to the kinds of verbs that modify privilege. Our people have had to work, scrape for privilege, gobble it down when those who would snatch it away weren’t looking. Keep a close watch. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

18 " Being an Other, in America, teaches you to imagine what can't imagine you. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

19 " The media wants to call them riots, but they’re uprisings. Why should black people behave well to get their rights? White people don’t behave and they get all the rights they want. "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland

20 " I call it Negroland because I still find “Negro” a word of wonders, glorious and terrible. A word for runaway slave posters and civil rights proclamations; for social constructs and street corner flaunts. A tonal-language word whose meaning shifts as setting and context shift, as history twists, lurches, advances, and stagnates. As capital letters appear to enhance its dignity; as other nomenclatures "

― Margo Jefferson , Negroland