Women Authors From The United States

"We need to recognize the destructive role played by the media in fanning the flames of the "Black-Jewish Conflict." Cornel West, bell hooks, Richard Green, Barbara Christian, Henry Louis Gates, Marian Wright Edelman, Nell Painter, Albert Raby....Why are these names not as well known outside the African American community as the names of Louis Farrakhan or Leonard Jeffries? Are they, in their diversity and dynamism, less representative of the African American community?"

"Before desegregation, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, all those laws, exclusionary laws, were meant to keep Negroes out."

"I live in Newark, which was heavily - actually bulldozed in the 1960s in urban renewal. And we think of urban renewal as harming black people, which of course it did, but it also hit some other vulnerable people, and Italian-American neighborhoods also got it."

"We still have slavery in the world today. and two of the areas pinpointed for slavery are Latin America, notably Brazil, and Eastern Asia."

"The idea of beauty being white, that is another enlightenment idea, actually, an 18th-century idea by another German, named Winckelmann, who's the father of art history"

"The whole point of defining races is mostly to put people down, and so those needs change over time."

"What has changed in the 21st century is that what we think of as class privilege can go a long way in blunting the color phobia"

"The census keeps counting us by race for purposes of undoing racial harm in the past."

"Visual art is very freeing, because it answers only to the eye."

"This was a new definition. I think there's room in our culture for interesting people who are black and for interesting people who are female and interesting people who are black and female. There's hardly any room to be interesting if you're old."

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States should be essential reading in schools and colleges...A sobering look at a grave history."

"It hasn't come together finally. There's no end to this, and it changes over time. My relationship with history as I used to write it, and as I sometimes use it in my work — that was something that took several years, actually, for me to feel comfortable with. And as I continued to wrestle with it and to deal with it visually, it's that I can do whatever I want to the figure; I can do whatever I want with history…"

"This may well be the most important US history book you will read in your lifetime...Spoiler alert: the colonial era is still here, and so are the Indians."

"Every society has an origin narrative that explains that society to itself and the world with a set of stories and symbols. The origin myth, as scholar-activist Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz has termed it, defines how a society understands its place in the world and its history. The myth provides the basis for a nation's self-defined identity. Most origin narratives can be called myths because they usually present only the most flattering view of a nation's history; they are not distinguished by honesty. Ours begins with Columbus "discovering" a hemisphere where some 80 million people already lived but didn't really count"

"I think that’s the kind of relationship between recognition and black women. That you have to be an optimist to think something’s going to work out and just keep trying because if you concentrate on the really awful actual facts of life, then you’ll just crawl into bed and pull the covers over your head."

"Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is a fiercely honest, unwavering, and unprecedented statement, one that has never been attempted by any other historian or intellectual... It is truly an Indigenous peoples' voice that gives Dunbar-Ortiz's book direction, purpose, and trustworthy intention."

"Dunbar was extremely charismatic. "It was meeting her that turned me into a feminist instantly, Linda Gordon recalled."

"(What’s the last great book you read?) The one I’m reading now; “Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment,” by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a history of how the United States evolved to where we are as a nation besieged by gun violence. This is not the kind of book I’d usually read, but I loved her earlier book, “An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States”; reading it was like going back to school and gaining a new perspective of the Americas, one that retrieved the lost history of my ancestors."

""Settler colonialism is inherently genocidal in terms of the genocide convention," writes historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. Although the genocide convention is not retroactive (it only became applicable in the United States in 1988, the year the US Senate ratified it), it is a useful lens for studying Indigenous history."

"In her acclaimed 2014 book An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz renarrates the dominant story of American history, foregrounding the settler colonial practices that disrupted North American Indigenous ways of living, particularly their connection to land and water."

"Our search for understanding in matters of race automatically inclines us toward blackness."

"U.S. leftists do not want to really acknowledge that they live within not only an imperialist state, but also one founded on being a colonizing state. Actually, indigenous land struggles had never stopped in the United States; social activists and leftists had little interest in Indians, and their struggles were simply not publicized, but beginning in the late 1950s they became more frequent and more widespread and began to be noticed, leading up to the Wounded Knee uprising in 1973."

"U.S. activists are always enthusiastic about and do solidarity work for agrarian uprisings in Latin America, such as the Zapatistas and the previous national liberation movements that had agrarian reform/revolution as their bases. But, they have not taken the time and made the commitment to understand indigenous and other agrarian struggles in the United States. Even the Civil Rights Movement in the South was weakened by not taking up the issue of land, and when voting rights were achieved organizers fled north and west to work in urban areas."

"I think the best place to start in developing solidarity with indigenous and other land struggles is the work being done at the international level, mostly in the United Nations system."

"Even before Mother interrupted my rally, the support of the Orïshans didn’t touch the boundless joy of these maji. I wonder what it would be like to be embraced like that. To actually have a place where you belong."

"(Chapter Twenty-Eight )"

"(Chapter Twenty-Seven )"

"If you’re going to be an elder, you need to understand that true magic isn’t about power,” I explain. “It’s something that’s a part of us, something that’s literally in our blood. Our people have suffered for this. Died for this. It’s not something you can just learn. You may have helped us get it back, but right now we’re still being hunted and killed for the very magic tîtáns like you use against us.”"

"Yoruba is sacred to our people. It’s not just something you can learn.”"

"Do you accept these people as your own?"

"(Chapter Thirty )"

"These rebels burned your city to the ground. They wanted you and your people to starve. They are the poison of Orïsha! If you do not cut off the hand now, eventually you will be forced to sever the entire limb.”"

"But the return of magic and the birth of tîtáns are living proof that we are finally returning to the Orïsha the gods have always wanted for us! We’re so full of hatred and fear, we’ve forgotten what blessings these abilities are. For centuries these powers have been the source of our strife, but the gods ordained us with magic so the people of Orïsha could thrive!”"

"(Chapter Six)"

"(Chapter Four)"

"For so long we’ve been defenseless against the havoc the maji wreak, but now the gods have blessed us as well. We’re powerful enough to annihilate them, Inan. The only way to achieve lasting peace is to cleanse the maggots from this land.”"

"(Chapter Two)"

"(Chapter Twenty-Three)"

"After the Raid, practicing these incantations was the only part of him I had left.”"

"I tuck away my white streak, wishing I could just chop the lock from my hair. Tzain may not notice the way Zélie looks at it, but I always catch the snarl it brings to her face. For so long, she had to suffer because of her gift. Now those that hurt her the most wield that magic themselves."

"Our lack of power and our oppression are one and the same, Inan. Without power we’re maggots. Without power the monarchy treats us like scum!”"

"For the first time since the torture, I feel a hint of the old fire that used to roar louder than my fear. But its flame is weak now; as soon as it flickers, it’s blown out by the wind.”"

"It’s like seeing her for the first time: the human behind the maji. Fear embedded in the pain. Tragedy caused in Father’s name.”"

"For years he forced Inan and me to trade blows and bruises under his watchful eye, never relenting, no matter how hard we cried. Every battle was a chance to correct his mistakes, to bring his first family back to life. If we got strong enough, no sword could take us down, no maji could burn our flesh. We fought for his approval, stuck in a battle for his love neither of us would ever win. We raised our swords against each other because neither of us had the courage to raise one against him.”"

"On earth, Sky Mother created humans, her children of blood and bone. In the heavens she gave birth to the gods and goddesses. Each would come to embody a different fragment of her soul.”"

"Magic slithers inside me. Venomous, like a thousand spiders crawling over my skin. It wants more of me.”"

"The moment magic breathes under my skin, I can’t find my voice. The purple light of my ashê glows around my hands, the divine power that fuels our sacred gifts. I haven’t felt its heat since the ritual that brought magic back to Orïsha. Since Baba’s spirit tore through my veins."

"In death, the other spirits of the arena passed on their pain. Their hate. In their memories I felt the sting of the guards’ whips. I tasted the salt of fallen tears on my tongue. But Minoli brought me to the dirt fields of Minna, where she and her sharp-nosed siblings worked the land for autumn’s corn crop. Though the sun shone brutal and the work was hard, each moment passed with a smile, with song.”"

"(Chapter Eighty)"

"I cannot end it like this. If I do that, I’m no better than him. Orïsha will not survive by employing his tactics. Father must be taken down, but it is too much to drive my sword through his heart—Father pulls back his blade. Momentum carries me forward. Before I can pivot, Father swings his sword around and the blade rips across my back."