Activist Quote by Emily Raboteau

“I learned from James Baldwin that one can be a novelist, essayist, and activist, combined. That being critical of one's country is a way of loving it. That travel is crucial for perspective. That faith needn't be confined to organized religion.” quote by Emily Raboteau — Download Open image

“I learned from James Baldwin that one can be a novelist, essayist, and activist, combined. That being critical of one's country is a way of loving it. That travel is crucial for perspective. That faith needn't be confined to organized religion.”

Emily Raboteau

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More by Emily Raboteau

I don't keep from despairing. I let myself despair. I just don't linger there for too long. There's too much to laugh about, two knuckleheads I have to feed, and a lot of really excellent television to watch. I think the mess we're in deserves the full range of human feeling, from despair to its opposite, which I would say…

Emily Raboteau

I felt saddened and confused to discover my favorite mural gone, but also hopeful that another one may be in the works. Street art is mysterious and impermanent like that. It can appear or disappear overnight. Murals like these are at risk of desecration, transformation, erasure. Someone's gonna piss on it, draw a mustache on it, tag it. The weather's…

Emily Raboteau

Your average white liberal might agree with social justice in principle, and yet live quite comfortably as a "winner" in a nation whose social institutions - characterized by political exclusion, exploitation, and unequal access to resources - have systematically made others lose out. But here's the thing. Maybe it's time to get uncomfortable and upset. Maybe those feelings can be…

Emily Raboteau

Acknowledging the realities of structural and institutional racism is hard for conscionable white people. It might ask them to consider how they're personally implicated, or have gained from systems that have oppressed and rejected others. It might require them to take a next step. It's easier to say, "I don't see race," or to dismiss the Black Lives Matter movement…

Emily Raboteau

I think it's really crucial to leave our American context, not only for a sense of individual freedom, but also to make links to…

Emily Raboteau

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I look at my kids, who were born under a Black president, who hop around the living room naked and joyful, mimicking Simone Biles,…

Emily Raboteau

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Here is a pragmatic and idealistic suggestion, White America! When you see my kids on the playground, on the street, can you remember to…

Emily Raboteau

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“That mess about judging people by the content of their character and not the color of their skin—that's some bullshit. Nobody has the right…

Emily Raboteau

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Nowadays we can sidestep traditional media with social media and technology that allows us to become citizen journalists, to fight against injustice by showing…

Emily Raboteau

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It matters when public officials admit that their hearts have changed, but only in the service of changing actual policy.

Emily Raboteau

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I don't think of rejection as rejection, just a bad fit. Then I seek out other avenues of acceptance.

Emily Raboteau

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Explore all 12 Emily Raboteau quotes

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The image of blacks usually is one of people who are suffering from hunger, unemployment, and poverty. The idea of them as agents and activists - as starting revolutions - does not exist in most people's minds. And I think it's very, very important that folks understand how much this country was founded on the enslavement of blacks, and how…

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I have never been an activist for anything.

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Because my graduate academic training at law school was not one that included most of the intellectual traditions I find useful for understanding the conditions and problems that most concern me - anti-colonial theories, Foucault, critical disability studies, prison studies and the like are rarely seen in standard US Law School curricula, where students are still fighting on many campuses…

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