why pretend

"But what if I am overstating these points and everyone really does accept that race is cultural and not biological? Is this really such a good thing? If human beings are not members of scientifically measurable "bioraces," then why pretend as though they are? Why do the work of making race by other, non-scientific means? If witchcraft isn't real, then why pretend as though witches walk among us? When I asked Adrian Piper, the artist who 'retired' from being black, whether she believed there was even something so straightforward as a 'black' sensibility, she denied it. Her point, which is worth taking seriously, is similar to Henry Louis Gates, Jr.'s: All human culture is available and knowable to all human beings. (Which is not quite the same as saying all human culture is equally important to all human beings.)"

~~ from Unlearning Race: Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams

pure, unadulterated mediocrity

"And when I reflected back on our post-prom trip to the Jersey Shore four years earlier, it occurred to me that some of the people who were still with us had since then gone to jail; some had sold and used drugs; most had drifted into lives of pure, unadulterated mediocrity; a few had babies they weren't prepared to raise; at least one had died. Charles and I were the only alumni from the group with our futures still intact, and that kind of bond doesn't easily unglue."

~~ from Losing My Cool by Thomas Chatterton Williams

reading was his lone salvation

from Losing My Cool by Thomas Chatterton Williams