Sherri - Obsidian Texts and Tangents

“They have never believed us human, but we will prove by our actions today that we are more than tools. Even if we aren’t human, we are people. They will never be able to deny us this again.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“When a comm builds atop a faultline, do you blame its walls for crushing the people inside when they inevitably crumble? Some worlds are built upon a faultline of pain, held stable—temporarily—by nightmare walls. Don’t lament when they fall apart. Lament that they were ever built in the first place.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Obelisk Gate

“There are stages to the process of being betrayed by your society. One is jolted from a place of complacency by the discovery of difference, by hypocrisy, by inexplicable or incongruous ill treatment. What follows is a time of confusion—unlearning what one thought to be the truth. Immersing oneself in the new truth. And then a decision must be made. Some accept their fate. Swallow their pride, forget the real truth, embrace the falsehood for all they’re worth—because, they decide, they cannot be worth much. If a whole society has dedicated itself to their subjugation, after all, then surely they deserve it? Even if they don’t, fighting back is too painful, too impossible. At least this way there is peace, of a sort. Fleetingly. The alternative is to demand the impossible. It isn’t right, they whisper, weep, shout; what has been done to them is not right. They are not inferior. They do not deserve it. And so it is the society that must change. There can be peace this way, too, but not before conflict. No one reaches this place without a false start or two.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky

“Then you say, “I want the world to be better.” I have never regretted more my inability to leap into the air and whoop for joy. Instead, I transit to you, with one hand proffered. “Then let’s go make it better.” You look amused. It’s you. It’s truly you. “Just like that?” “It might take some time.” “I don’t think I’m very patient.” But you take my hand. Don’t be patient. Don’t ever be. This is the way a new world begins. “Neither am I,” I say. “So let’s get to it.”
― N.K. Jemisin, The Stone Sky