There are things about the South - the politics, the classism, the racism - that I hate, and I want to be here to fight those things. I don't want to be in California or Michigan just complaining about them. I'm here trying to make a difference in the way I can, writing about it. And I want younger people, especially kids from my community, to see that being successful doesn't have to mean leaving a place like this. You don't have to trade in your family or your sense of belonging for that.
Jesmyn WardI felt like if I didn't write about what happened to the young men here in the South of America, the same things would keep occurring. Here in the South, young black men just keep dying - young black women, too. I couldn't live with myself if I hadn't been as honest as possible about that.
Jesmyn WardMy father owned pit bulls when I was young. He sometimes fought them. My brother and a lot of the men in my community owned pit bulls as well: sometimes they fought them for honor, never for money.
Jesmyn WardMy mom worked as a housekeeper, and I saw her relationship with her employers - how on the one hand she spent more time with these women than with a lot of her friends, and how in certain ways they were friends. But then they weren't.
Jesmyn WardWhile I've said that there are plenty of things I dislike about the South, I can be clear that there are things I love about the South.
Jesmyn Ward