Erasure Quotes
Quotes tagged as "erasure"
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“When I was on unemployment I was not ashamed of being a social outcast. Just furious. It鈥檚 the same thing for being a woman: I am not remotely ashamed of not being a hot sexy number but I am livid that鈥攁s a girl who doesn鈥檛 attract men鈥擨 am constantly made to feel as if I shouldn鈥檛 even be around.”
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―

“The struggle to find a poetry in which your survival rather than your defeat is celebrated, perhaps to find your own voice to insist upon that, or to at least find a way to survive amidst an ethos that relishes your erasures and failures is work that many and perhaps most young women have to do”
― Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir
― Recollections of My Nonexistence: A Memoir

“You are correct in your observation that words in common use that are not written down would necessarily be excluded. Your concern that some types of words, or words used by some types of people, will be lost to the future is really quite perceptive.”
― The Dictionary of Lost Words
― The Dictionary of Lost Words

“literature composed by women was stored not in books but in female bodies, living repositories of poetry and song. I have come across a line of argument in my reading, which posits that, due to the inherent fallibility of memory and the imperfect human vessels that held it, the Caoineadh cannot be considered a work of single authorship. Rather, the theory goes, it must be considered collage, or, perhaps, a folky reworking of older keens. This, to me --- in the brazen audacity of one positioned far from the tall walls of the university --- feels like a male assertion pressed upon a female text. After all, the etymology of the word 鈥榯ext鈥� lies in the Latin verby 鈥榯exere鈥�: to weave, to fuse, to braid. The Caoineadh form belongs to a literary genre worked and woven by women, entwining strands of female voices that were carried in female bodies, a phenomenon that seems to me cause for wonder and admiration, rather than suspicion of authorship.”
― A Ghost in the Throat
― A Ghost in the Throat

“Are you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.”
― The Last Poems of D. H. Lawrence
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.”
― The Last Poems of D. H. Lawrence

“Plainly put, the imperative to 鈥渂e professional鈥� is the imperative to be whiter, straighter, wealthier, and more masculine. A wolf in sheep鈥檚 clothing masquerading as a neutral term, professionalism hangs over the head of anyone who鈥檚 different, who deviates from the hegemony of white men.”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“I keep a list as close as my phone, and draw a deep sense of satisfaction each time I strike a task from it. In such erasure lies joy. No matter how much I give of myself to household chores, each of the rooms under my control swiftly unravels itself again in my aftermath, as though a shadow hand were already beginning the unwritten lists of my tomorrows鈥�”
― A Ghost in the Throat
― A Ghost in the Throat

“At first glance, professionalism tries to convince you it鈥檚 a neutral word, merely meant to signify a collection of behaviors, clothing, and norms 鈥渁ppropriate鈥� for the workplace. We just ask that everyone be professional, the cis white men will say, smiles on their faces, as if they鈥檙e not asking for much. We try to maintain a professional office environment. But never has a word in the English language been so loaded with racism, sexism, heteronormativity, or trans exclusion. Whenever someone is telling you to 鈥渂e professional,鈥� they鈥檙e really saying, 鈥渂e more like me.鈥� If you鈥檙e black, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can often mean speaking differently, avoiding black cultural references, or not wearing natural hair. If you鈥檙e not American, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can mean abandoning your cultural dress for Western business clothes. If you鈥檙e not Christian, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can mean potentially removing your hijab to fit in, sitting by while your officemates ignore your need for kosher or halal food, sucking up the fact that your office puts up a giant Christmas tree every year. If you鈥檙e low-income or working class, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can mean spending money you don鈥檛 have on work clothes鈥斺€渄ressing nicely鈥� for a job that may not pay enough for you to really afford to do so. If you鈥檙e a woman, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can mean navigating a veritable minefield of double standards. Show some skin, but don鈥檛 be a slut. Wear heels, but not too high, and not too low, either. Wear form-fitting clothes, but not too form-fitting. We offer maternity leave, but don鈥檛 鈥渋nterrupt your career鈥� by taking it. And if you鈥檙e trans like me, 鈥渂eing professional鈥� can mean putting your identity away unless it conforms to dominant gender norms.”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
“In the meantime, a massive and frightening bleakness inside me kept expanding and rattling. Sometimes I wrote about it in my diary, sensing that if I didn鈥檛 somehow fill the hollowness, it would swallow my heart and spit out my core. Other times I wished for the emptiness to scrape me off, a permanent erasure.
I was terrified that I was supposed to be living and I wasn鈥檛, that I must have some prospect and I didn鈥檛.”
― Daughters of Smoke and Fire
I was terrified that I was supposed to be living and I wasn鈥檛, that I must have some prospect and I didn鈥檛.”
― Daughters of Smoke and Fire
“Underneath
every pattern is a logic
it's your privilege to ignore
& yours is dreamsense yours is erasure”
― Brute: Poems
every pattern is a logic
it's your privilege to ignore
& yours is dreamsense yours is erasure”
― Brute: Poems

“The whole point of being a token is that you exchange your rage at inequality for the respect and admiration of your peers. You trade in your right to be angry, to be dissatisfied, for the right to be hugged and affirmed by those around you. You stop pointing out the ways in which people are hurting you or making your identity feel impossible, and unless it is self-serving, you stop pointing out the fact that you are the only one like you. You take the fact that there is only one of you (or, in my case, that there are very few like you), and instead of treating that fact as what it is鈥攄amning evidence of exclusion and discrimination鈥攜ou treat it as evidence that you are special.”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“To sincerely adopt the psychology of tokenism, you have to sell your community out. That鈥檚 the dark underbelly of the thing. Instead of blaming the institutions, rules, and social attitudes of those around you for the absence of other people like you, you blame your own community”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“At the time, presenting in this masculine of a fashion didn鈥檛 feel like selling out. But that, in and of itself, is part of the problem. Throughout my senior year, when I was faced with obstacles or competitive processes or selection committees, I reverted to masculinity out of fear every time. I feared discrimination at every turn, feared that if I were to truly wear my identity on my sleeve, I would lose everything.”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story

“Isn鈥檛 it interesting that you don鈥檛 even have to say 鈥淒uke Men鈥檚 Basketball鈥�? You just say 鈥淒uke Basketball,鈥� and everyone assumes you鈥檙e talking about the men鈥檚 team? As if the women鈥檚 team doesn鈥檛 exist? Isn鈥檛 it interesting that you just say 鈥渢he NBA鈥� and everyone knows you鈥檙e talking about the (Men鈥檚) National Basketball Association? But if you want to talk about women鈥檚 professional basketball, you have to say 鈥渢he WNBA鈥�? Anyway.”
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
― Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
“Assertion, even self-assertion, does not invariably bespeak an urge to annihilate the opposition or to wield coercive power.”
― The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies
― The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, the Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies

“The Legion of White Decency was the Northerners鈥� version of the Ku Klux Klan, you see. They marched in the same white sheets, they burned the same crosses 鈥� Most of the history books talk more about the KKK than they do about the Legion of White Decency, and a lot of people don鈥檛 even know there was such a thing. I think it might be because most of the histories have been written by Northerners and they鈥檙e ashamed.”
― IT
― IT

“There is a kinship, between the climate scientists and the epidemiologists and the scholars of authoritarian states. The people who research worst-case scenarios are stuck breaking bad news while protectors of profit margins and purveyors of institutionalist mythologies market false assurances. The later remain successful not in spite of evidence, but to spite the evidence.”
― They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent
― They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent

“Tholukuthi through these tales we learned there were in fact many untold narratives that were left out of the Seat of Power's tales of the nation, that were excluded from Jidada's great books of history. That the nation's stories of glory were far from being the whole truth, and that sometimes the Seat of Power's truths were actually half-truths and mistruths as well as deliberate erasures. Which in turn made us understand the importance not only of narrating our own stories, our own truths, but of writing them down as well so they were not taken from us, never altered, tholukuthi never erased, never forgotten.”
― Glory
― Glory

“Sitting there staring at the closed garage door you are reminded that a friend once told you there exists the medical term--John Henryism--for people exposed to stresses stemming from racism. They achieve themselves to death trying to dodge the buildup of erasure.”
― Citizen: An American Lyric
― Citizen: An American Lyric
“Liberation is not just about movement from one place to another, but especially about how Exodus鈥� multiple movements become mechanisms for bringing liberation to the material and ideological structures of oppression in Egypt, the Wilderness, the Mountain, and beyond. The catalyst for exodus liberation movement (鈥渓et my people go鈥�) serves a larger goal: 鈥渓et my people live鈥� 鈥攖he hermeneutical and material transition from erased, marginalized, and singularized existence to creative freedom, wholeness, and community that enshrines the full flourishing of the material and interpretive soul/life.”
― Let My People Live: An African Reading of Exodus
― Let My People Live: An African Reading of Exodus

“Cute is the worst way to be. Cute is an act of erasure. Cute is gynophobia writ large.”
― Gold Fame Citrus
― Gold Fame Citrus

“The condition of being alienated and "othered" reflects the ways in which navigating Western societies as a Black person is an endlessly unsettling experience, something that might be ripped whole from the pages of a speculative novel. Because of this, the search for lost cultural touchstones is a gesture towards survival: it is an Afrofuturistic act. At its heart it is the creation of a possible future based on a reconstructed, or reimagined past. In this way, a ware is wages against erasure.”
― Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling
― Out of the Sun: On Race and Storytelling

“So much of this story is about power and how it shapes our knowledge of the environment. By not trusting someone because of their gender, race, age, or class, we lose crucial information. We erase their contributions and discount their observations. Margaretta's and Elizabeth's respective lives and work illuminate the frustrating hurdles they faced as women, despite the privileges afforded to them by their wealth and race. The [Morris] sisters developed strategies and methods to counter the distrust, the exclusion, even the attacks. Despite all of that, they have been erased from the historical narrative. They have been forgotten.”
― Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science
― Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science

“We all say "sunrise" and "sunset" despite the fact that we all also know that the sun isn't rising or setting. Language and labels are fluid. So while we need to resist the impulse to put people in boxes, we shouldn鈥檛 negate the value of labels, especially where dominant labels too often seem to erase the identities and experiences of the non-dominant.”
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“My great-grandfather survived the Sand Creek Massacre, and his son survived boarding schools, and his daughter, my mother, survived losing her mother and being raised by white people. And still brought us up knowing who we were. Who we are. Somehow. So why had I been sheltering the boys from their culture? Something made so strong it survived more than it should have survived. It was more than survival. The culture sings. The culture dances. The culture keeps telling stories that bring you into them, take you away from your life and bring you back better made.”
― Wandering Stars
― Wandering Stars
“A society that doesn鈥檛 understand the meaning of words will not recognize the theft of meaning.”
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“The most dangerous injustice is the one that flatters the educated while erasing the vulnerable.”
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