“Being someone who supports people of color and stands against racism isn't easy. Sometimes it requires sacrifice and having difficult conversations -- but that will never be as difficult as actually being impacted by racism.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“I trust you, and that why I'll be honest and tell you that change is not easy. For some people, it won't matter that we're friends, or that you're friends with people who are like me.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“Believing in diversity and inclusion does not mean we are building diverse and inclusive organizations.”
Source: The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias
“If there are inherent predispositions to intolerance of difference, if citizens so predisposed pop up in all societies, and if those predispositions are actually activated by the experience of living in a vibrant democracy, then freedom feeds fear that undermines freedom, and democracy is its own undoing. The overall lesson is clear: when it comes to democracy, less is often more, or at least more secure. We can do all the moralizing we like about how we want our ideal democratic citizens to be. But democracy is most secure, and tolerance is maximized, when we design systems to accommodate how people actually are. Because some people will never live comfortably in a modern liberal democracy. (p.335)”
Source: The Authoritarian Dynamic
“We need to do away with the idea of 'normal,' especially when it's used as a stand-in for 'mainstream' (whether that's white or anything else seen as such). Because at the heart of this difference between normal and abnormal is the belief that these so-called normal things are neutral.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“I'm asking you to protect one another and learn from one another. I'm asking you to turn 'different' into the new normal, and then tell others to do the same.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“We have to learn to see with new eyes, hear with new ears, and find new ways to trust other people's words when they tell us and show us how we're hurting them. Because doing the right thing sometimes means putting the pain of others before our own, especially if we are part of creating it.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“While this book is meant to be a guide for white people to understand and be better, it's important that white people also understand that it isn't the duty of Black people or people of color to explain things. I'm doing so because I hope it can ultimately make change for my community.”
Source: The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person
“He wanted to teach the children that all bodies are beautiful. Among the pupils at Tomoe were some who had polio, like Yasuaki-chan, or were very small, or otherwise handicapped, and he felt if they bared their bodies and played together it would rid them feelings of shame and help to prevent them from developing an inferiority complex. As it turned out, while the handicapped children were shy at first, get soon began to enjoy themselves, and finally they got over their shyness completely.”
Source: Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window
“All the elephants of the jungle were gray except Elmer, who was a patchwork of brilliant colors until the day he got tired of being different and making the other elephants laugh.”
Source: Elmer