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Alice Walker

Alice Walker Quotes

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Famous Alice Walker Quotes

“In our despair that justice is slow we sit with heads bowed wondering how even whether we will ever be healed. Perhaps it is a question only the ravaged the violated seriously ask. And is that not now almost all of us? But hope is on the way. As usual Hope is a woman herding her children around her all she retains of who she was; as usual except for her kids she has lost almost everything. Hope is a woman who has lost her fear.”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“If I could be the mother of Wind I would blow all fear away from you. If I could be the mother of Water I would wash out the path that frightens you. If I were the mother of Trees I would plant my tallest children around your feet that you might climb beyond all danger. But alas, I am only a mother of humans whose magic powers have vanished since we allow our littlest ones to face injustice suffering & the unholiest of terrors alone.”

ChildrenPoetrySufferingFearJusticeDangerPoemInjusticeTerrorMothers
Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“How peculiar it feels to speak about health care in America taking care of people’s health while our government bombs the limbs off children in faraway lands. And starves and imprisons not a few of them at home. How odd that it seems not obviously known that true health care must mean, at minimum, deliberate non-harming of anyone?”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“To the Po'lice In case you are wondering the answer is yes: you have hurt us. Deeply. Just as you intended: you and those who sent you. You do know by now that you do not send yourself? I imagine your Designers sitting back in the shadows laughing as we weep. Though usually devoid of feeling, they are experiencing a sensation they almost enjoy: they get to witness, by twisted enchantment, dozens of strong black mothers weeping. They planned and nurtured your hatred and fear and focused the kill shot. Then watched you try to explain your innocence on TV. It is entertainment for them. They chuckle and drink Watching you squirm. They have tied you up in a bag of confusion from which you will never escape. It’s true you are white, but you are so fucking poor, and dumb, to boot, they say. A consideration that turns them pink with glee. (They have so many uses planned for the poor, white, and dumb: you would be amazed). You and the weeping mothers have more in common than you might think: the mothers know this. They have known you far longer than you have known them. After centuries, even those in the shadows, your masters, offer little mystery. If you could find your true courage you might risk everything to sit within a circle, surrounded by these women. Their eyes red from weeping, their throats raw. (They might strike you too, who could swear they wouldn’t?) Their sons are dead and it was you who did the deed. Scary enough. But within that enclosure Naked to their grief Is where you must center If you are ever To be freed.”

PoetryPoemRacismMurderPoliceAfrican AmericansBlacksPolice BrutalityRace RelationsPolicing
Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“Is Celie actually ugly? Asks the charismatic star playing her on Broadway. How many times over the years I have explained this. Celie and her “prettier” sister Nettie are practically identical. They might be twins. But Life has forced on Celie all the hardships Nettie mostly avoids.... Endless labor that would demean and soon obliterate the observable loveliness of the most queenly slave. I wanted us to think about how superficial is our understanding of beauty; but, also, how beauty is destroyed.”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“Even on those days the news is fully bad. And all you can do is get out of bed and failing that give thanks you have a bed not to get out of. What does it take to make us smile when we feel the sword of anger and hatred sharp against the backs of our peaceful necks? What does it take to make us stand together as if we just grew that way? What does it take to know the day of peace and justice will one day come? No matter who is so badly directing traffic? What does it take to feel a joy so strong you can almost levitate? All it takes, really, is presence, knowing that you, and those who feel as you do, ignoring roadblocks will arrive. Will brave the flights, the slights, the nights of wondering if and why: the years of pain sometimes required to know where it is most essential to appear.”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“It does not matter to me: wherever you are grieving whether Paris, Damascus, Jerusalem, Bamako, Mexico or Beirut or New York City my heart, too, is bruised and dragging. There used to be such a thing as melodrama when feelings could be made up, but now there is bare pain and sorrow, a sense of endlessly missed opportunities to smile and embrace "The other.”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“My friend says to me: But what can we do? Already giving up. To be aware is already something, I say. Consciousness rarely leaves us unmoved. Or unmoving. And so it is with this revelation of what has been happening to our children, all of them, and especially to our boys. The beast in so-called civilized man is more lethal, sinister, grotesque and cunning than I would have believed: And what is it, anyhow, this beast? How does it manifest in every age to plague our republic from shadows it projects as light?”

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Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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“The world rising can put an end to anything: the murder of children whales elephants oceans. Get up. Roll over on that part of you that will not welcome recognize encourage or even see our rise. A compassionate roll: we must be done with cruelty especially to ourselves, to start again beaming like the sun; fresh. But a roll that shows we’ve reached the end of polite moves to repair and re-create the Earth, and will press hard on any parts of us even those we have loved, that insist on remaining oblivious and asleep.”

PoetryConsciousnessPoemActivismAwakeningWokenessObliviousness
Book:Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart
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