"In the White racist imagination, “a nigger is a nigger is a nigger.” White supremacy took different types of Africans and reduced them to “the nigger.” I’m not chasing that kind of thinking. We are diverse!  I refuse to embrace that sameness. I know my people are diverse. Black rigidity, and not Black diversity, is the real threat to Black people. When we buy into notions of Black sameness, we begin to lose. I don’t want, nor do I need, all Black people to be the same. Some of us are straight, some are gay, some are masculine, some are feminine, some of us are rich, some of us are poor, some of us are college educated, some of us are trade educated, some of us outspoken, some of us are quiet. Respect our diversity. How can you claim to love Blackness, want to fight for it, when you see us the same way White supremacist do? We are not a pool of sameness."

--antiintellect

I'm finally reading Toure's "Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness"

partially for pleasure and partially for a paper I'm writing about Awkward Black Girl, because let's be real, I don't have time to read for pleasure until April 14th.

And I'm following him on Twitter and have to fight myself hard not to tweet everything I find profound and tag him in every single tweet. I'm considering it an exercise in self-control.

But I have to share this, his writings on another Black student telling him he wasn't Black:

"Why was I working to reject being defined by the white gaze but not also working to reject definition by the Black gaze?...Who gave him the right to determine what is and is not Blackness for me? Who made him the judge of Blackness? To say I'm not Black is to accuse me of apostasy as if Blackness were a religion that could be escaped. But we cannot abandon Blackness even if we commit treason against it. It's permanent. Even an Uncle Tom must suffer beneath the boot of white supremacy. And I'm not a Tom just because you don't understand me. I may be a work in progress but I will always be Black. The only things in life that I am obligated to do are pay taxes, be Black, and die." 

--Toure, Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? What It Means to Be Black Now, pg. 97