15 Quotes by Mychal Denzel Smith

Individual safety and prosperity at the expense of solidarity can only ever replicate capitalist hierarchies and the violent means imposing them. If you view your emancipation as separate from mine, we will forever be locked in an unwinnable competition.

We make a grave mistake every time we invoke the history of oppression to diminish the reality of racism’s present. Progress is real, but the narrative of progress seduces us into inaction. If we believe, simply, that it gets better, there is no incentive to do the work to ensure that it does.

We shouldn’t be seeking the respect of an unjust system that will not respect us on the basis of our humanity alone.

Our struggle has inspired oppressed people the world over, because if former slaves can make the most powerful nation face itself, there’s a chance for everyone else. In a twist, our rage becomes hope for others.

To my Newly Forming Black Radical mind, women – more specifically black women – had a way of existing without being present. It’s a natural result of consuming history and culture through the fables of masculine triumph.

What would we happen if we reframed the way we understand black male life in a way that took mental health seriously? If we looked outside and didn’t see ruthless gangbangers, but teenage boys left hopeless and giving themselves suicide missions. If instead of chastising young men for fighting over sneakers we asked why they felt worthless and unseen without them. If we didn’t label them junkies, but rather recognized their need for affirmation.