I mostly want to remind her of the recipes of healing, and give her my own made-on-the spot remedy for the easing of her pain. I tell her, “Get a pen. Stop crying so you can write this down and start working on it tonight.” My remedy is long. But the last item on the list says: “When you wake up and find yourself living someplace where there is nobody you love and trust, no community, it is time to leave town – to pack up and go (you can even go tonight). And where you need to go is any place where there are arms that can hold you, that will not let you go.

Often girls feel deeply cared about as small children but then find as we develop willpower and independent thought that the world stops affirming us, that we are seen as unlovable.

I think it's crazy for us to think that people don't understand what's being foregrounded in their lives at a given point in time.

The greater our commitment, the more likely our love will last.

But love is really more of an interactive process. It's about what we do not just what we feel. It's a verb, not a noun.

Shame produces trauma. Trauma produces paralysis.

All our silences in the face of racist assault are acts of complicity.