Luvvie Ajayi

"Under promise and over deliver. People will be pleasantly surprised that you gave more than they expected. And remember that there is always room for us to be better and do better. That's what I am calling for. Not just everybody else - myself, too."

"Being a 'good man' is something you do, not something you are."

"Avoidance has never been a great tactic in solving any problem. For most situations in life, not addressing what's going on only makes matters worse."

"Black trauma is never given space to heal because we have to make sure the white people who hurt us don’t feel too bad about it. Even as victims, we’re told to care about the feelings of those who harm us."

"We are entrusting thousands of strangers with our innermost thoughts and feelings, and then we're expecting them to be careful with those feelings. As much as we want it to be, the Internet is not a safe space. It is not a place where we can lay our burdens down and heal. Why? Because there are too many people there who do not give an ounce of a shit about our well-being. They do not deserve our rawness, and they will not treat it with care."

"First of all, even nice people can be racists, because racism does not depend on malicious intent. It is not a requirement for you to consciously hate someone who is of a different skin color for you to be racist. Let me repeat. You do not need to actively hate someone who is of a different race than you to do racist crap and hold racist views."

"I'm not interested in living in a world where my race is not part of who i am. I am interested in living in a world where our races, no matter what they are, don't define our trajectory in life."

"Why try to change who you were born to be and force yourself into who you think everyone will find more beautiful? Society has failed people to the point where they feel they cannot like themselves in the skin they were born in."

"I am not asking everyone to be activists. I am not asking everyone to march on the front lines. I am not asking every writer, public figure, or celebrity to lead social movements. I am not asking them to make speeches on how they have a dream. I am, however, challenging people not to stay silent as the world crumbles. You do not have to yell. Even a whisper of truth matters in an echo chamber of lies."

"Our privileges are the things not within our own control that push us forward and move us ahead from that starting line. Acknowledging them does not mean you are admitting to doing something to purposefully contribute to someone else’s oppression or marginalization. Nay, friends. It means you recognize that some part of your identity puts you in a better position than others. It means something about you assists your progress in the race of life. It also means that whatever majority group you belong to has likely contributed to the oppression of another. Knowing our privilege does not make us villains, but it should make us more conscious about the parts we play in systems that are greater than us. It should make us be more thoughtful; it should humble us. We need to admit that some of us had a head start and aren’t just flourishing on our strength alone."

"If there’s a book that you want to read, but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it."

"But we are more than the sum of our parts, and we are more than the numbers on our scales. Be like me and judge people by the decisions they make with their eyebrows. That’s way more important."

"We will ruffle feathers. We might be the villains in a few people’s stories. We might even blow up a few bridges. But our worth is not based on how much we acquiesced to the people we knew. The goal is to betray ourselves less. So, be kind but take no shit."

"Racism is not a byproduct as much as it's the foundational stock in the American soup."

"Don’t let people who can’t spell your name right tell you about who you are. Don’t let folks who only have courage behind a keyboard define your goodness or your worth as a person. Do not let people who are already rooting for you to falter insist on your value, because they will steer you wrong."

"Being able to live without having to be defined by your skin color is the hallmark of privilege."

"A successful life is one lived on my own terms, not one where I end every day more tired than the last. And if everyone else around me is happy but I’m empty, then I have betrayed myself."

"There's power in believing there's a God in each of us because if we are made in His/Her/Their image, aren't we all like good horcruxes for God? Because a piece of them is in us?”"