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Quote by Dean Atta

“This isn’t what I wanted for your moving daybut this is what it’s like to be black in this country or anywhere in the world. They interrupt our joy. Our history. Our progress. They know they can’t stop us unless they kill us but they can’t kill us all,so you’re living your life and suddenly interrupted by white fear or suspicion. They fear sharing anything. Our success is a threat.”

Quote by Dean Atta

Book:The Black Flamingo
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The Black Flamingo

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Dean Atta

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“You looked at them and wondered why they were so ugly; you looked closely and could not find the source. Then you realized that it came from conviction, their conviction. It was as though some mysterious all-knowing master had given each one a cloak of ugliness to wear, and they had each accepted it without question. The master had said, “You are ugly people.” They had looked about themselves and saw nothing to contradict the statement; saw, in fact, support for it leaning at them from every billboard, every movie, every glance. “Yes,” they had said. “You are right.” And they took the ugliness in their hands, threw it as a mantle over them, and went about the world with it.”

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“Critics assert that Black Lives Matter is an anti-White terrorist group; the counterargument, "All Lives Matter," is little more than a racist dog whistle that attempts to both delegitimize centuries of claims of global anti-Black oppression and position those who exhibit tremendous pride in their Blackness as enemies of the state. Well, we are enemies of any racist, sexist, classist, xenophobic state that sanctions brutality and murder against marginalized people who deserve to live as free people.”

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“I grew up in a neighborhood that was impoverished and in pain and bore all the modern-day outcomes of communities left without resources and yet supplied with tools of violence. But when someone in my neighborhood committed a crime, let alone a murder, all of us were held accountable, my God. Metal detectors, searchlights, and constant police presence, full-scale sweeps of kids just walking home from school--all justified by politicians and others who said they represented our needs. Where were these representatives when white guys shot us down?”

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