Samurai Champloo Quotes

There are those days when your patience wears thin, and the cuts are too many to ignore, when you’re too tired but not tired enough, when you’ve had enough of the bullshit and the tomfoolery, and you’ve reached that magical moment when you’ve manifested the ability to make time. Someone’s got to teach these fools: Never disrespect a Black woman.

It was funny the arc of a life: knowing fear as a child, to conquering them as a young adult, to going back around to fear in your older years and knowing that your initial assessment had always been right. Life was an endless churn of helplessness and fear that we had no control over. The only difference was that now, I have learned to swim my way through it.

I had decided a long time ago, out of necessity, that the living was more important than the dead. I couldn’t spend my entire life as an avenger. I couldn’t spend all my time atoning for my mistakes. I couldn’t fall on my sword when others were depending on me to live.

We were women, and mothers, and sisters, and cousins. We were teachers, and healers, and innovators, and warriors. And we went down fighting.

A samurai must present themselves with dignity and honor at all times. Now, go take a bath you dirty heathens.

You don’t know where I come from. You don’t know what I’ve been through. You’ve seen one moment in time, and not my growth. You’ve read a few chapters and think you know the end. You think I am a character in a play for your amusement. You think you know my history. You think you know my fate. You think that I am blind and that I don’t see your hate. You don’t know me. Nor are you entitled to. In the end, my honor was defined by me. And not by you.

And this is for Colored girls who have considered suicide, but are moving to the ends of their own rainbows.” -For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, Ntozake Shange, 1975

I didn’t have the time to go around educating folks. I didn’t have the time to correct every ignorant word that fell from the mouths of people who didn’t care to change. Nor should I always have to prove why my existence deserves their respect.

Someone’s got to teach these fools: Never disrespect a Black woman.

Only hope can give rise to the emotion we call despair. But it is nearly impossible for a man to try to live without hope, so I guess that leaves man no choice but to walk around with despair as his companion.

Time was cruel and it was brief. It was merciful and patient. It was fragile and easily broken. It was bright and way too fast. Cherish every god damn moment. ‘Cause spring would not last.