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Danzy Senna Quotes

He began to talk about the fact that race was not only a construct but a scientific error along the magnitude of the error that the world was flat. . . 'And when they discover their mistake, I mean, t...

Danzy Senna

He began to talk about the fact that race was not only a construct but a scientific error along the magnitude of the error that the world was flat. . . 'And when they discover their mistake, I mean, t...

Much privilege leads to bad manners,

Danzy Senna

Much privilege leads to bad manners,

About Author
Danzy Senna is an American novelist and essayist. She is the author of six books and numerous essays about race, gender and motherhood, including Caucasia (1998), Symptomatic, and New People (2017), named by Time Magazine as one of the Top Ten Novels of the year. In July 2024 she will publish a novel entitled Colored Television. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Vogue and The New York Times. She is a professor of English at the University of Southern California.

And very carefully to them the truth of what you know, but with kindness in your heart. Have compassion for them, because not everybody starts on an equal playing field. Love, Gloria

Danzy Senna

And very carefully to them the truth of what you know, but with kindness in your heart. Have compassion for them, because not everybody starts on an equal playing field. Love, Gloria

I wondered if whiteness were contagious. If it were, then surely I had caught it. I imagined this condition affected the way I walked, talked, dressed, danced, and at its most advanced stage, the way...

Danzy Senna

I wondered if whiteness were contagious. If it were, then surely I had caught it. I imagined this condition affected the way I walked, talked, dressed, danced, and at its most advanced stage, the way...

Tags: race, whiteness

When there is a gap—between your face and your race, between the baby and the mother, between your body and yourself—you are expected, everywhere you go, to explain the gap.

Danzy Senna

When there is a gap—between your face and your race, between the baby and the mother, between your body and yourself—you are expected, everywhere you go, to explain the gap.

Tags: identity, multiracial, race

She is beginning to understand that completion is not so much about reaching perfection as it is making the choice to look away from the material. What was it Khalil used to say when she couldn’t fini...

Danzy Senna

She is beginning to understand that completion is not so much about reaching perfection as it is making the choice to look away from the material. What was it Khalil used to say when she couldn’t fini...

She has decided all university campuses are alike- the sense of possibility and stasis. She thinks this too: all graduate students, if you look closely enough, exude the same aura of privilege and pov...

Danzy Senna

She has decided all university campuses are alike- the sense of possibility and stasis. She thinks this too: all graduate students, if you look closely enough, exude the same aura of privilege and pov...

Tags: university

Something—to make something right and final—is to kill it.

Danzy Senna

Something—to make something right and final—is to kill it.

Don't hate white people. They can't help it. They have a learning disability. They need your compassion. They need accommodations. They are like preschoolers--their understanding of race is so basic....

Danzy Senna

Don't hate white people. They can't help it. They have a learning disability. They need your compassion. They need accommodations. They are like preschoolers--their understanding of race is so basic....

We were lying on our backs in the foothills, watching the sky and making a list called Never. All the things we would never do. Let's never get married. Let's never get fat. Let's never sleep with a m...

Danzy Senna

We were lying on our backs in the foothills, watching the sky and making a list called Never. All the things we would never do. Let's never get married. Let's never get fat. Let's never sleep with a m...

We learn in school that the civil rights movement was about overcoming segregation. But as my father has pointed out to me, what an oddly neutral word - segregation to describe what was happening in t...

Danzy Senna

We learn in school that the civil rights movement was about overcoming segregation. But as my father has pointed out to me, what an oddly neutral word - segregation to describe what was happening in t...

My father's subject: the relationship between history and the individual. He believes everybody is an 'excretion' of his or her environment. That's the word he uses. Excretion.

Danzy Senna

My father's subject: the relationship between history and the individual. He believes everybody is an 'excretion' of his or her environment. That's the word he uses. Excretion.

My father tells me that the further you get away from an experience, the deeper it roots itself inside of you. Don't fool yourself, baby, he said. Time does not heal and history is not progressive.

Danzy Senna

My father tells me that the further you get away from an experience, the deeper it roots itself inside of you. Don't fool yourself, baby, he said. Time does not heal and history is not progressive.

Looking at those photographs, I remembered how my parents had never said I love you to each other. How they had said only I miss you. At the time, I hadn’t been able to figure out what this meant. But...

Danzy Senna

Looking at those photographs, I remembered how my parents had never said I love you to each other. How they had said only I miss you. At the time, I hadn’t been able to figure out what this meant. But...

It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.’ But then you come home, and of course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away...

Danzy Senna

It’s funny. When you leave your home and wander really far, you always think, ‘I want to go home.’ But then you come home, and of course it’s not the same. You can’t live with it, you can’t live away...

I think the narcolepsy is adorable. Someday you'll be happy for these little lulls. Who the fuck wants a man to be awake all the time?

Danzy Senna

I think the narcolepsy is adorable. Someday you'll be happy for these little lulls. Who the fuck wants a man to be awake all the time?

I recalled a theory my father had concocted one night, while we sat in an Oakland juke joint sharing a plate of ribs. He'd said humor, above all else, was what bound each of us and separated each of u...

Danzy Senna

I recalled a theory my father had concocted one night, while we sat in an Oakland juke joint sharing a plate of ribs. He'd said humor, above all else, was what bound each of us and separated each of u...

He seemed particularly insistent. I both did and didn’t want to be left alone at the house with my mother. There was an aching in my chest that surprised me, and my eyes were watering up against my wi...

Danzy Senna

He seemed particularly insistent. I both did and didn’t want to be left alone at the house with my mother. There was an aching in my chest that surprised me, and my eyes were watering up against my wi...