I don't think that there are as many black women or women of color becoming psychiatrists, so we can't find them and then we feel looked at and studied and that's part of what is damaging to us. It's hard to find therapy that is actually a tool for your own liberation. I think we can be really distrustful.

I think often if people don't have a lot of experience with a particular type of person or a particular type of brain, they can make dangerous assumptions. That's one of the reasons that I'm so interested in contradicting and troubling held thoughts about black women.

Since the election [of Donald Trump], I've been thinking about a lot of theory. Lots of [Michel] Foucault and [Karl] Marx, thinking about different systems, thinking about power. Trying to figure out what I can take and learn from history as a tool for getting through whatever is happening right now, which feels very significant and major.

My friends and I have all been super motivated to work and to do the work that we need to and want to and think should be in the world.

So much of my writing process is trying to eliminate any kind of shame or fear of the thoughts that I'm having.

The book [There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé?] is quite complex, and I was worried that it would be marketed as one-sided or flat, and I knew that Mickalene's [Tomas] work would be able to encompass all the many states of being that are in the book.

I've been thinking a lot about folks denying what has happened in history, or just not acknowledging it.