I'm not entangled in shaping my work according to other people's views of how I should have done it.

What is the nature of Othering's comfort, its allure, its power (social, psychological, or economical)? Is it the thrill of belonging - which implies being part of something bigger than one's solo self, and therefore stronger? My initial view leans toward the social/psychological need for a "stranger," an Other in order to define the estranged self (the crowd seeker is always the lonely one).

I always looked upon the acts of racist exclusion, or insult, as pitiable, from the other person. I never absorbed that. I always thought that there was something deficient about such people.

Everything I've ever done, in the writing world, has been to expand articulation, rather than to close it.

Make a difference about something other than yourselves.

If you're going to hold someone down you're going to have to hold on by the other end of the chain. You are confined by your own repression.