41 Quotes by Reni Eddo-Lodge

I want to deconstruct the structural power of a system that marked me out as different. I don't wish to be assimilated into the status quo, I want to be liberated from all negative assumptions that my characteristics bring. The onus is not on me to change. Instead, it's the world around me.

The politics of whiteness transcends the colour of anyone's skin. It is an occupying force in the mind. It is a political ideology that is concerned with maintaining power through domination and exclusion. Anyone can buy into it, just like anyone can choose to challenge it. [...] Those who perceive every critique of white-dominated politics to be an attack of them as a white person are probably part of the problem.

It's clear that equality doesn't quite cut it. Asking for a sliver of disproportionate power is too polite a request. I don't want to be included. Instead, I want to question who created the standard in the first place.

Faced with a collective forgetting, we must fight to remember.

Riots always seem to kick off in the summer.

Not displaying anger wasn’t going to stop me being labelled as angry, so I thought: fuck it. I decided to speak my mind. The more politically assertive I became, the more men shouted at me.

Faced with the collective forgetting, we must strive to remember

It's truly a lifetime of self-censorship that people of colour have to live.

Idistinctly remember a debate about whether racism was simplydiscrimination, or discrimination plus power. Thinking about power made merealise that racism was about so much more than personal prejudice. It wasabout being in the position to negatively affect other people’s life chances.