"Definitions belong to the definers, not the defined."
Toni Morrison, Beloved
“Well I know this, and anyone who has ever tried to live knows this. What you say about somebody else, anybody else, reveals you. What I think of you as being is dictated by my own necessities, my own psychology, my own fears and desires. I’m not describing you when I talk about you, I’m describing me. Now here in this country we’ve got something called a nigger. There is no such term as this in any other country in the world. We have invented the nigger. I didn’t invent him. White people invented him. I’ve always known - I had to know by the time I was 17 years old - that what you were describing was not me, what you were afraid of was not me. It had to be something else. You had invented it so it had to be something you were afraid of. And you invested me with it. No matter what you’ve done to me, I can say to you this: I know you can’t do any more and I’ve got nothing to lose. And I have always known - and really always, that is part of the agony - I’ve always known that I’m not a nigger. But if I am not the nigger, and if it’s true that your invention reveals you, then who is the nigger? I am not the victim here. I know one thing from another. I know I am born, I’m going to suffer, and I’m going to die. The only way you get through life is to know the worst things about it. I know that a person is more important than anything else. I learned this because I had to learn it. But you still think, I gather, that the nigger is necessary. Well, he’s not necessary to me, so he must be necessary to you. I’m going to give you your problem back. You’re the nigger, baby, it isn’t me. — James Baldwin (1963)
(Source: fuckyeahwritersquotesandwisdom, via beautiful-ambition)
