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“I am highly suspicious of attempts to brightside human suffering, especially suffering that—as in the case of almost all infectious diseases—is unjustly distributed. I’m not here to criticize other people’s hope, but personally, whenever I hear someone waxing poetic about the silver linings to all these clouds, I think about a wonderful poem by Clint Smith called “When people say, ‘we have made it through worse before.’â€� The poem begins, “all I hear is the wind slapping against the gravestones / of those who did not make it.â€� As in Ibn Battuta’s Damascus, the only path forward is true solidarity—not only in hope, but also in lamentation.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“into whitemalegod’s hands. Interestingly, we didn’t fast and pray for anything other than marriage. By putting marriage on a pedestal, my parents taught me that my main objective in life was to please God by pleasing men. First, I was to please my dad, who enforced the fasting, and then I was to please my future husband, who was the prize for fasting.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“I was by no means a Goody Two-shoes; I was just more effective than most at silencing my need. But in silencing my need, I silenced myself almost to the point of self-erasure.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman

“As scholar Heide Göttner-Abendroth is quick to point out, matriarchal societies aren’t simply the reversal of patriarchal societies, with women ruling over men. Rather, they are need-based societies that are centered around the values of caretaking, nurturing, and responding to the collective needs of the community.”
― Christena Cleveland, God Is a Black Woman