Renee Watson Quotes & Sayings

I wonder if any of these boys ever sit in a room for boys' talk night and discuss how to treat women. Who teaches them how to call out to a girl when she's walking by, minding her own business? Who teaches them that girls are parts - butts, breasts, legs - not whole beings?

I was going to eat at Dairy Queen, but I don't want to sit through the discussion of if I'm a five or not. I eat a few fries before I walk out.

'Hey, hold up. My boy wants to talk to you,' Green Hat says. He follows me, yelling into the dark night.

I keep walking. Don't look back.

'Aw, so it's like that? Forget you then. Don't nobody want your fat ass anyway. Don't know why you up in a Dairy Queen. Needs to be on a diet.' He calls me every derogatory name a girl could ever be called.

I keep walking. Don't look back. — Renee Watson

I know something happens between the time our mothers and fathers and teachers and mentors send us out into the world telling us, "The world is yours," and "You are beautiful," and "You can be anything," and the time we return to them.

Something happens when people tell me I have a pretty face, ignoring me from the neck down. When I watch the news and see unarmed black men and women shot dead over and over, it's kind of hard to believe this world is mine.

Sometimes it feels like I leave home a whole person, sent off with kisses from Mom, who is hanging her every hope on my future. By the time I get home I feel like my soul has been shattered into a million pieces.

Mom's love repairs me. — Renee Watson

Am I a hypocrite?" I ask. "You're a black girl who fell in love with a white boy." "And a black girl who cares about race and class issues." Nikki leans back in the chair. "You can be both. — Renee Watson