QuoteProject
In America, mixed-race identity tends to invite both curiosity and suspicion, largely because few have found a way to interrogate it without centering whiteness as the scale by which to evaluate blackness.
Jenna Wortham
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote discusses the complexities of mixed-race identity in America, highlighting societal biases that assess blackness against a white standard.

Jenna Wortham's quote reflects on the societal challenges faced by individuals of mixed-race identity in America, noting that their existence often elicits both curiosity and suspicion. This reaction stems from a historical and cultural framework where whiteness is used as the central point of reference for evaluating blackness, leading to a skewed understanding of racial identity that neglects the nuances of multi-ethnic experiences.

Themes

Mixed-RaceIdentityWhitenessBlacknessCuriositySuspicion

In practice

Example use cases

This quote can be used in a discussion about racial identity in a diversity training seminar.

More from Jenna Wortham

The web's earliest architects and pioneers fought for their vision of freedom on the Internet at a time when it was still small forums for conversation and text-based gaming. They thought the web could be adequately governed by its users without their needing to empower anyone to police it.
Jenna WorthamRead

Similar quotes

Poverty blights whole cities; spreads horrible pestilences; strikes dead the very souls of all who come within sight, sound, or smell of it
George Bernard ShawRead
Saints cannot arise where there have been no warriors, nor philosophers where a prying beast does not remain hidden in the depths.
George SantayanaRead
Conversion for me was not a Damascus Road experience. I slowly moved into an intellectual acceptance of what my intuition had always known.
Madeleine L'EngleRead
In the magical universe there are no coincidences and there are no accidents. Nothing happens unless someone wills it to happen. The dogma of science is that the will cannot possibly affect external forces, and I think that’s just ridiculous. It’s as bad as the church. My viewpoint is the exact contrary of the scientific viewpoint. I believe that if you run into somebody in the street it’s for a reason.
William S. BurroughsRead
Wealth and speed are what the world admires, what each pursues. Railways, express mails, steamships and every possible facility for communications are the achievement in which the civilized world view and revels, only to languish in mediocrity by that very fact. Indeed, the effect of this diffusion is to spread the culture of the mediocre.
Johann Wolfgang Von GoetheRead
I am talking about societies drained of their essence, cultures trampled underfoot, institutions undermined, lands confiscated, religions smashed, magnificent artistic creations destroyed, extraordinary possibilities wiped out.
Aime CesaireRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.