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When I wouldn't leave home without my blue contacts or when I was bleaching my hair, I didn't have the language to articulate that I was trying to assimilate to whiteness. If anything, I was trying to look normal.

Vivek Shraya

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Vivek Shraya
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More quotes by Vivek Shraya

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It's exciting to consider how art, in its ability to reveal, can be ahead of the artist.
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I would love to see more dialogue around the responsibilities of art consumers - how can audiences better financially support artists we love, artists who are doing the work, so that artists have a more solid foundation upon which to make art?
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I didn't want to give the white reader an opportunity to think of racism as imaginary - a sentiment that is already a central barrier in addressing the problem.
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In poetry, I didn't have to provide resolution. I could ask hard questions without feeling responsible for the answers.
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Now is not the time for Canadians to be sanctimonious. It is time for us to be prudent and active.
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When I was writing, I wanted every word to be not only deliberate, but musical. Precious.
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I especially worry about the ways Canadians can be glib about our supposed difference from the US in our acceptance of diversity.
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Making music has been connected to one of my greatest heartaches, because my own music has never quite connected with audiences. But it was this heartache that pushed me to explore other artistic avenues, like writing and filmmaking, and I ultimately feel most at home in a multidisciplinary environment.
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I recently did a reading at an elementary school in Ottawa, and one of the children asked me if I was a girl. I said yes. Another child commented that I had a deep voice. I responded: Can girls have deep voices? There was a pause and then the group responded, Yes!
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Vivek Shraya
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As a person of color, I know race can't be stripped from admiration or preference.
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