“Race.” I really can’t understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both “black” and theref… - Jamaica Kincaid

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“Race.” I really can’t understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both “black” and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can’t take them seriously. Not beyond the fact that they have the ability to say that you and I are a single race. You know, a piece of cloth that is called “linen” has more validity than calling you and me “black” or “negro.” “Cotton” has more validity as cotton than yours and my being “black.”…

English
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About Jamaica Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid (born May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer.

Also Known As

Birth Name: Elanie Cynthia Potter Richardson
Alternative Names: Elanie Potter Richardson Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson
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Additional quotes by Jamaica Kincaid

You know how they say a man’s house is his castle? I think for a woman, it’s her body. I feel so strongly about a woman’s right to choose. This is my Zionism. It’s not a “right” any more than it’s a right to breathe, to take in oxygen. I think a woman is powerless if she cannot freely claim the right to her reproductive capacity. Society can talk about anything it likes, except a woman’s reproductive existence. I think I write out of that feeling.

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