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Quote by Octavia E. Butler

Work

Kindred

The story follows a modern African-American woman who is inexplicably transported back to the antebellum South, where she must navigate the complexities of slavery and racial relations while attempting to save her ancestor. more

Author

Octavia E. Butler

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“She had never spoken that way with her cousin before, or with any other male member of her family or community. This wasn’t the kind of village where girls spoke freely in the presence of men. It wasn’t even the kind of village where girls and women walked in public with men; the small back alleys and streets that lined the houses were how they got about, staying out of the men’s way as much as possible.”

“They begin to perceive that ours is a world where the notion that some people are less important than others has been allowed to take root, and grow until it buckles and cracks the foundations of our humanity. “How could they?” the gleaners exclaim, of us. “Why would they do such things? How can they just leave those people to starve? Why do they not listen when that one complains of disrespect? What does it mean that these ones have been assaulted and no one, no one, cares? Who treats other people like that?”

“Culture' is, in sum, at an historical turning point. Emerging in the late nineteenth century as an abstract analytical and political concept, explicitly associated with concepts of inequality, and still now a useful component in the production and reproduction of state power, it seems to be increasingly shaken loose from its rootedness in the state, as difference comes to be directly produced by the policies and practices of state, without invoking culture.”

“Microaggressions are not trivial and insignificant but have a continuing and oftentimes harmful macro impact. Those in the majority group, those with power and privilege, and those who do not experience microaggressions are privileged to enjoy the luxury of availing for proof. Meanwhile, people of color, LGBTQ brothers and sisters, and other socially devalued groups continue to be harmed and oppressed. To ask them to wait for individual, institutional, and societal change is to ask them to continue to suffer in silence and to maintain the status quo of power and privilege.”