#colson whitehead

[quotespile]

Everyone had secret corners and alleys that no one else saw — what mattered were your major streets and boulevards, the stuff that showed up on other people’s maps of you.

Colson Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle

[wrenthedevil]

Stopped at a used bookstore on the way back home from the camping trip <3

[fyeahblackactresses]

Stills from Nickel Boys Directed by RaMell Ross

[litsnaps]

[gregorygalloway]

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead was first published on 2 August 2016.

The novel was a best-seller and received numerous awards, including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. It has also been named as one of the best books of the 21st Century (The Guardian, the New York Times).

[rapsnitchknishesss]

https://www.instagram.com/alxanogart?igsh=MXdsZXAwaG9oZGN0Nw%3D%3D&utm_source=qr

life support (2024) oil on canvas 84.5 x 59.5cm

[hamishlinklaters]

HAMISH LINKLATER as MAYNARD SPENCER Nickel Boys (2024) | dir. RaMell Ross

[dk-thrive]

Go ahead and use A.I. however you like. Except art. If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack.

Studies show that overreliance on these digital tools causes cognitive decline, but if current events are any indication, nobody’s making much of a contribution anyway. Go ahead and use A.I. however you like.

Except art. If you use it for your art, you’re a freakin’ hack.

Some people say, “I just use it for research. It only gets things wrong or hallucinates crazy stuff 30 percent of the time.” I don’t need a research assistant that gets things wrong 30 percent of the time. I can do that myself. Are they trying to replace me?

Oh, right — they are.

Good luck with that. Data centers — gigawatt-sucking, pollution-spewing slop houses of mediocrity — are ravaging the environment, consuming all the water and electricity and supercharging utility bills. It really makes those midnight chats with the love bot sort of bittersweet to know that the orgasms are measured in metric tons of melted glacier. Do you realize how much water and power it’d take to replicate the average writer’s narcissism, self-loathing and despair? It’d drain the Indian Ocean. You could light up Times Square for a year. We can’t afford it. […]

The point is, I’m not saying all this to defend humanity. Humanity sucks. It’s totally terrible. I’m saying this because I believe in an old-fashioned virtue called Doing the Freakin’ Work.

Read the book, not the summary.

Write the piece, not the prompt.

Suffer like the artist you are. It ain’t easy, but if it were easy, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

— Colson Whitehead, from “Don’t Use A.I. To Do This” (NY Times, April 15, 2026)