anokarina: “And I may not have realized I was marginalized until I check my reaction to the people coming here. There’s a bittersweet thing that stays bitter more than sweet.” —Akida Kissane Long
anokarina: “There is no divorcing the lack of diversity in the outdoors from a history of violence against the black body, systemic racism, and income inequality.” —Rahawa Haile
anokarina: “The amount black women earn for every white male dollar: 63 cents.” ―Rahawa Haile
anokarina: “I didn’t know what not guilty looked like. I didn’t know why I needed to know that.” ―Bryan Washington
anokarina: “Freeing yourself was one thing; claiming ownership of that freed self was another.” ―Toni Morrison
anokarina: “I can confirm that one does not walk 2,000 miles across the face of this country as a black woman without building up an incredible sense of self.” —Rahawa Haile
anokarina: “I told them, firmly, “This is yours.” This country had done an exceptional job making clear what wasn’t — equality, safety, justice, financial mobility, the right to vote.” —Rahawa Haile
anokarina: Whiteness is “the last vestige of something that has no future. In reality, no color can be assigned to a given human being, not black, of course, but not white or yellow or any color identity whatsoever either.” ―Alain Badiou
anokarina: “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” ―Barack Obama
anokarina: “I’m just a wedge of color in these white spaces hoping to keep the door open long enough for people who look like me and voices who sound like mine to join me.” —Minda Honey
anokarina: “It is not geography alone which determines the quality of life and culture. These depend upon the courage and personal culture of the individuals who make their home in any given locality.” ―Ralph Ellison
anokarina: “Two years in classrooms at long tables surrounded by faces as white as the paper we printed our work on. I felt like the black text on that paper, forcefully marching across the landscape of my peers’ white lives.” —Minda Honey
anokarina: “...the depth and breadth of institutional racism in this country is impossible to understand unless you spend time in the places and with the people most affected, and even then you really can only understand a fraction of it.” ―Daniel Patterson
anokarina: “We have crafted our own traditions on a bedrock that may not resemble the stories of other communities, but they are no less valuable, no less important to making up the identity of this society.” —Mikki Kendall
anokarina: “I can tell you that kindness is everywhere, not as an excuse for the hatred that courses through this country’s veins, but out of hope for the progress that is destined to replace it.” —Rahawa Haile
anokarina: “It changes you being up underneath open sky, peering down into the depths of a canyon, or passing through a forest of trees so old they remember when your ancestors were in chains; [maybe] long enough to witness the day your people finally get free.”