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John Howard Griffin

John Howard Griffin Quotes

Journalist

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Famous John Howard Griffin Quotes

“I learned a strange thing... that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word "nigger" leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and it always stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance. I thought with some amusement that if these two women only knew what they were revealing about themselves to every Negro on that bus, they would have been outraged.”

IgnoranceHatredVulgaritySlursRacial Slurs
Book:Black Like Me
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“Nothing can describe the withering horror of this. You feel lost, sick at heart before such unmasked hatred, not so much because it threatens you as because it shows humans in such an inhuman light. You see a kind of insanity, something so obscene the very obscenity of it (rather than its threat) terrifies you. It was so new I could not take my eyes from the man's face. I felt like saying: "What in God's name are you doing to yourself?”

MenFeelsHumansHeartKindShowsLightEyeFacesNamesLostFeltFearHorrorHatredSickThreatInsanityInhumanObsceneObscenityWithering
Book:Black Like Me: The Definitive Griffin Estate Edition
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