Zero Status: Scapegoat

When you are the family scapegoat, runaway do not be surprised if your siblings, in-laws, cousins, and neighbors, deliberately ignore you. They got brainwashed. They got the memo. The memo that said IGNORE HER, she is a traitor to our CLASS and a traitor to this family. Damn straight. Got that right.

There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
― James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
― James Baldwin

Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
― James Baldwin

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
― James Baldwin

People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
― James Baldwin

You write in order to change the world ... if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
― James Baldwin