11 Quotes That Lived in My Mind Rent-Free in 2021 & Why They Should Live in Yours Too!
Good evening! Happy New Year!
I hope that you’re all safe and healthy during Part 3 of this panda express. I am praying and hoping that Omarion or Omiri-caucau, as my aunt calls it, does not affect you and your loved ones.
To start off 2022 right, I am doing a getting to know me series. You will learn things about me, from my love of winking to how I recharge after a hard week. And seeing as I primarily blog about books and tea, what better way to start off this series than to tell y’all the quotes that live rent-free in my mind.
“…we use our criminal justice system to label people of color “criminals” and then engage in all the practices we supposedly left behind. Today it is perfectly legal to discriminate against criminals in nearly all the ways that it was once legal to discriminate against African Americans… We have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.”
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
This is a hard truth that I’ve been grappling with since I watched Ava DuVernay’s documentary “13th.” I had heard that mass incarceration was a reformed Jim Crow system in college; however, it wasn’t until I read Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” that I saw how I was complicit in the control that it had and continues to have on Black persons and bodies. Do I support businesses and institutions that discriminate based on a checked box? Do I applaud Black artists when they blame mass incarceration on Black men? When asked where have all the Black men gone, do I look to the incarcerated state or do I blame interracial relationships (though I still think that many Black men need to grapple with their own anti-Black beauty standards)? All in all, this book has reshaped the way I ask questions to invoke more nuance.
I love this verse so much that I have it tattooed on my body. We are always chasing this ideal version of ourselves as if it will magically appear one day. However, this verse allows us to rest with the journey of self-awareness. We will never know our fullest selves on this side of heaven; but, our identity as beloved calls us to run the race.
“Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed to us. But we know that when Christ comes, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”
1 John 3:2
“Freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another.”
Beloved by Toni Morrison
I have left toxic habits and coping mechanisms only to return to them months later. The reality is that I was never free; I was only taking a “break.” I’m claiming freedom from toxic behaviors for you and I in 2022.
Wildness being free strikes a chord in me. The way that Europeans shackled the African continent, a continent that was once wild and free, is criminal. My greatest desire is to see European countries have their own racial and colonialist reckoning that undoes their belief that they saved “savage” peoples and realize that they plundered and stole from God’s children who had customs they didn’t understand.
“We are accustomed to look upon the shackled form of a conquered monster, but there—there you could look at a thing monstrous and free.”
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
“It had occurred to Pecola some time ago that if her eyes, those eyes that held the pictures, and knew the sights—if those eyes of hers were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different.”
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
This passage changed my life. It took me a long time to stop wishing for lighter skin and looser curls. Moving to the US only exacerbated those desires; however, it wasn’t until I saw my wishes through the eyes of Pecola that I understood my deep self-hatred. How my eyes were open? After reading this book, I went on a whirlwind, self-love journey. I stopped using relaxers and skin-whitening creams. I am still on the self-love journey (and will hopefully be for the rest of my life), but I am better than when I started.
Song of Songs is a book after my own heart. It’s pro-Black, pro-woman, and pro-love. When negative thoughts afflict me, this is the first verse that I use as self-defense.
“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.”
Song of Songs 4:7
“She had won, indeed, but her triumph was full of air. Her fleeting victory had left in its wake a vast, echoing space, because she had taken on, for too long, a pitch of voice and a way of being that was not hers”
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
We are all uniquely beautiful. And the way express ourselves, from our accents to fashion styles, are uniquely ours. I changed everything unique about me when I moved to the US. I did my best to fit into the square hole and I succeeded. That is, until I realized that white supremacy and US American ethnocentrism had won. These institutions molded me into something that was not Drey. This passage shook me back into the beauty of my experiences and cultures. Now, I try to encompass every aspect of myself in every room that I enter.
This is self-explanatory but if you need explaining… This is a reminder that God made you that bitch. Do the thing you’re most scared of doing.
“They can only kill us once.”
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza
“It is our choices…that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”
Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
There will always be someone who is more [insert adjective here] than you. But oftentimes, it is not our abilities that predict success; it is our choices. Remember that the next time you let comparison steal your joy!
This passage fully describes my recklessness. I am not adventurous in the same way that hikers or mountain climbers are adventurous; but you can best believe that I’m out here doing reckless and exciting things. For one, I started a blog on a whim of curiosity. I simply wanted to know whether this could be an avenue of growth and learning. Though it may not be physical death; my perfectionism and procrastination theoretically dies every time I sit down to write a post. And when I hit “Publish,” I find myself feeling more alive than I did before.
“…We humans are reckless with our bodies, reckless with our lives, for no other reason than that we want to know what would happen, what it might feel like to brush up against death, to run right up to the edge of our lives, which is, in some ways, to live fully.”
Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
It’s been nice to share a little piece of my mind with you. I hope that it encourages some good, reckless behavior (not an oxymoron).
Stay Blessed & Stay Sippin’
Drey
Disclaimer: Though influenced by the institutions that formed me, the views expressed here are those of my own at a specific snapshot in time. I make no promises that said ideas will remain constant as I age.
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