There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
Audre LordeRead
Im Jamaican, man. Im Jamaican first. You gotta understand thats where Im from. Thats home. That you can never take away from me. Im a Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of one's roots and cultural identity.
Donovan Bailey expresses a deep sense of pride in his Jamaican heritage, asserting that no matter where he goes or what he achieves, his identity as a Jamaican defines him. This statement reflects the idea that cultural roots and origins are integral to a person's sense of self, and they shape an individual's life experiences and achievements.
In practice
During a multicultural festival, one might use this quote to emphasize the celebration of diverse heritages.
There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
Oh, I love labels, as long as they are numerous. I'm an American writer. I'm a Nigerian writer. I'm a Nigerian American writer. I'm an African writer. I'm a Yoruba writer. I'm an African American writer.
I would rather be a member of this [Afrikan] race than a Greek in the time of Alexander, a Roman in the Augustan period, or Anglo-Saxon in the nineteenth century.
I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others in the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans - but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was?
I must identify myself with Africa. Then I will have an identity.
The mark of a Scot of all classes [is that] he ... remembers and cherishes the memory of his forebears, good or bad; and there burns alive in him a sense of identity with the dead even to the twentieth generation.
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