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" Empathy should not be contingent on our proximity to suffering or the likelihood of it happening to us. Rather, it should stem from a disdain that suffering is happening at all. "

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" The power of literature does not lie in resonance with the particular but the way that the particular speaks to a broader, more universal truth. "

Clint Smith

Literature

Lie

Truth

" I want to live in a world where my son will not be presumed guilty the moment he is born, where a toy in his hand isn't mistaken for anything other than a toy. "

" Preparing oneself for the possibility of confronting racism triggers something that slowly chips away at physical and emotional well-being. "

" With 'Black Panther,' black artists were provided with the opportunity and agency to create art that captures the full range of their imaginative possibilities. It matters that Chadwick Boseman is the protagonist and is supported by a cast of nearly all black characters. "

" When the power of private prisons is diminished, so, too, is their ability to engage in back-door political lobbying that has an impact on public and private prisons alike. "

" In sixth grade, my status as a Boy Scout was not something I went out of my way to share. In fact, I spent most of my adolescence attempting to keep it a secret from those who might use it as a source of derision. The off-brown collared shirt and forest-green sash were not something I would have ever been caught wearing in front of my friends. "

" The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table - it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us. "

Clint Smith

Death

Death Penalty

" I think about the history of racism in this country all the time. "

" Living under the perpetual and pervasive threat of racism seems, for black men and black women, to quite literally reduce lifespans. "

" We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't. "

" One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does so because poetry helps him see something in the world that he might not have seen before. "

" The benefits of prison education go beyond lowering recidivism rates and increasing post-release employment. It can also rekindle a sense of purpose and confidence. "

" Do those serving life sentences deserve access to educational opportunities never having a future beyond bars? The answer is yes and necessitates that in-prison education serves additional goals beyond reducing recidivism. "

" It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible. "

" Who has to have a soapbox when all you've ever needed is your voice? "

" Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces where learning can be both cultivated and encouraged. "

" When we say that black lives matter, it's not because others don't: it's simply because we must affirm that we are worthy of existing without fear, when so many things tell us we are not. "

" A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage. "

" If you only hear one side of the story, at some point, you have to question who the writer is. "

" New Orleans taught me that mourning takes many different forms. Where I'm from, mourning is spirited. It is loud. "

" The history of racial violence in our country is both omnipresent and unspoken. It is a smog that surrounds us that few will admit is there. "

" Until affirmative action is described and understood as one mechanism by which to make amends for historical wrongdoing against members of marginalized communities, it will fail to meaningfully address the inequality that exists as a direct result of federal policy. "

" My parents raised me and my siblings in an armor of advice, an ocean of alarm bells so someone wouldn't steal the breath from our lungs, so that they wouldn't make a memory of this skin. "

" After high school, I earned a scholarship to play Division I soccer at a small school in North Carolina, but I didn't get much playing time, which forced me to determine who I was beyond the field, something I had previously never had to do. "

" Black artists deserve the opportunity to create work without the burden of alleviating the social ills plaguing many black communities. "

" Schools shouldn't have to choose between serving a student with special needs or cutting an art class, laying off teachers or using outdated textbooks. But these are the positions that far too many schools have been placed in, and only a meaningful acknowledgment of the problem can begin the process of getting them out. "

" Blackness remains the coat you can't take off. "

" In high school, I made the all-city and all-state soccer teams. "

" Young people are constantly absorbing - through media, textbooks, and policy - the myths of American exceptionalism; for black children, this means that what they are taught in class does not match the world that they navigate daily. "

" Silence is the residue of fear. "

Clint Smith

Silence

Fear