7 Quotes & Sayings By Jess Row

Jess Row lives with her husband and two children in Toronto, Ontario. She is an award-winning author, a blogger for The Huffington Post, and a former Teach For America corps member. Jess's books include "Not My Father's War," a novel about a young woman who journeys to Iraq with her father and his platoon. Her other books include "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of," "Through the Looking Glass," and "A Walk on the Wild Side." Jess is also the author of "Eye of the Needle," a book on performance art that she wrote with artist Jessica Harrison.

1
The only honest way to approach the question of whiteness and blackness is to start by accepting that these are arbitrary categories that were invented in the 17th and 18th century in order to justify imperialism and slavery. They’re categories intended for the enforcement of power. They were never intended to be psychologically satisfying in the way we want them to be. Jess Row
2
Does it, does it– I'm flailing here–does it have a name? What you've Jess Row
3
What I was pointing to was that, yeah, blackness is a fiction; whiteness is a fiction. When we live according to these categories, we’re living within a fiction. Of course, it’s a fiction with very real consequences. Jess Row
4
Country’s friggin’ dying, man, you have to triage the motherfucker. Jess Row
5
In the first couple of weeks there were big piles of trash outside every house. All the stuff you couldn’t find another use for and couldn’t compost. Yogurt cups, torn trash bags, dirty diapers, hair-spray cans, paper towels. Sometimes you’d see a pile that was as high as your waist. Nathan said it was a purge, a cleanse. But you could just as well say that who we were went out with the empties. We will never get our selves back. . Jess Row
6
As a white teen, I was very drawn to hip-hop culture, almost to the point of disappearing in it - there was a sense of having no sense of authenticity except this one that wasn't mine. Jess Row