My grandparents were wealthy; my mom was not. I would walk into these worlds of privilege and then walk back into this other world. My little brother is biracial. So race and economic class and sexuality - these were always issues that were a part of my life.
Interpretation
The quote expresses the contrast between different social and economic backgrounds experienced within a family.
Jacqueline Woodson reflects on her upbringing, highlighting the stark differences in wealth and privilege between her grandparents and her mother. She addresses the complexity of identity that comes from navigating varying worlds of privilege, race, economic class, and sexuality, showing how these factors shaped her life and perspective.
In practice
This quote can be used in discussions about social justice and privilege.
'Brown Girl Dreaming' was a book I had a lot of doubts about - mainly, would this story be meaningful to anyone besides me? My editor, Nancy Paulsen, kept assuring me, but there were moments when I was in a really sad place with the story for so many reasons. It wasn't an easy book to write - emotionally, physically, or creatively.
In the midst of observing the world and coming to consciousness, I was becoming a writer, and what I wanted to put on the page were the stories of people who looked like me.
Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying. And sometimes the world feels all right and good and kind of like it's becoming nice again around you. And you realize it, and realize how happy you are in it, and you just gotta laugh.
I don't want anyone to walk through the world feeling invisible ever again.
The strength of my mother is something I didn't pay attention to for so long. Here she was, this single mom, who was part of the Great Migration, who was part of a Jim Crow south, who said, 'I'm getting my kids out of here. I'm creating opportunities for these young people by any means necessary.'
I would have written 'Brown Girl Dreaming' if no one had ever wanted to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of how strong we are and how much we've come through.
A feud should live a full and colorful life, and then it should die a natural death and be forgotten.
A lot of times, rather than helping people with horse problems, I'm helping horses with people problems.
In the quest to be clever, I completely forgot about the people that I love and that love me.
Expressing our vulnerability can help resolve conflicts.
It is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope. But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical will live the relation to another as something alive.
Grief can take care if itself, but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.