A Quote by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
How do we refresh our language? Why do we still use, like, a 150-year-old classification system to talk about people? It's so weird! We still call people black and white?
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A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.
You can talk about things indirectly, but if you want to talk how people really talk, you have to talk R-rated. I mean I've got three incredibly intelligent daughters, but when you get mad, you get mad and you talk like people talk. When a normal 17-year-old girl storms out of the house or 15-year-old boy is mad at his mom or dad, they're not talking the way people talk on TV. Unless it's cable.
I've never seen a sincere white man, not when it comes to helping black people. Usually things like this are done by white people to benefit themselves. The white man's primary interest is not to elevate the thinking of black people, or to waken black people, or white people either. The white man is interested in the black man only to the extent that the black man is of use to him. The white man's interest is to make money, to exploit.
So I was really excited when I came to America about meeting black people. But it was a huge culture shock, because I was rejected by the black community. They were like, 'You talk like a white girl.' People would call me an Oreo. All I wanted was acceptance.
The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people's expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn't care if you are a white person who likes Black people; it's still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don't look like you.
Some people aren't smart enough to understand the intellectual part of a being. That's why as a 30-year-old you don't have a conversation with a 15-year-old. I don't dine with 15-year-olds and talk about life. Our experiences are completely different.
I still remember how me and my husband spent 30 minutes trying to convince our then 10 and 12 year old son and daughter that they really would love this black and white movie called, 'It's a Wonderful Life'.
There are so many aspects of human sexuality that we're afraid to talk about, because people still don't understand it. It's not just black and white, you know?
I wrote poems and an essay about that weird language. We still remember it to a certain extent, and it still comes up when we're all together. It's so fundamental to how I think.
I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance's White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah's Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back — and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!
It's weird being mixed race, people never talk about the white side, they always talk about the black side.
When you talk about "white privilege", you're talking about something systemic. When you're talking about "black privilege" it's something spiritual because we as black people tap into a divine system that a lot of other cultures and races can't tap into and that system allows us to prosper in spite of everything that's been thrown our way from slavery to segregation to mass incarceration. We have a privilege pre-ordained by God that nothing and no one can stop.
You can't have anything valuable in your house. Niggers will break in and take it all! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people don't like about black people. It's like our own personal civil war. On one side, there's black people. On the other, you've got niggers. The niggers have got to go. I love black people, but I hate niggers. I am tired of niggers. Tired, tired, tired.
You feel like people are looking at you like, 'I wanted the old Kathleen. Where's the old Kathleen?' I felt that way in the beginning of Le Tigre. I felt people were like, 'You're not angry enough anymore.' People still ask me that. 'Are you still angry?' I'm like, 'About what? About that question? Yes.'
We celebrate Thanksgiving along with the rest of America, maybe in different ways and for different reasons. Despite everything that's happened to us since we fed the Pilgrims, we still have our language, our culture, our distinct social system. Even in a nuclear age, we still have a tribal people.
Any time I claimed to be white, that would be unacceptable. It just doesn't make sense in people's minds. If I'm white, how can I walk through a department store and still have people scared that I'm going to rob them? Which, that can still happen.
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