I am living in the most opportune time in black history in the United States and that means, still, that I will die younger, live poorer, risk more e… - Tressie McMillan Cottom

The farther away you move from our dominant assumptions about who should have expertise, generally speaking, the more you have to prove that you have a legitimate claim to whatever you're speaking on. For black women that means we're dealing with racist ideas and stereotypes about who's knowledge is valuable, but we're also dealing with gender stereotypes about who should be allowed to speak and to lead…

That is because knowing your whites is to know that white voters allowed Barack Obama to become an idea and a president because he was a charming projection of the paradox that defines them as white. The charm is neither necessary nor sufficient, but it helps.

When beauty is white and I am dark, it means that I am more likely to be punished in school, to receive higher sentences for crimes, less likely to marry, and less likely to marry someone with equal or higher economic status.16 Denying these empirical realities is its own kind of violence, even when our intentions are good. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that ugly is as ugly does. Both are lies. Ugly is everything done to you in the name of beauty. Knowing the difference is part of getting free.