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Quote by James Baldwin

“The occurrence of an event is not the same thing as knowing what it is that one has lived through. Most people had not lived – nor could it, for that matter, be said that they had died – through any of their terrible events. They had simply been stunned by the hammer. They passed their lives thereafter in a kind of limbo of denied and unexamined pain.”

Quote by James Baldwin

Work

Another Country

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Author

James Baldwin

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“The most frustrating aspect of all this is that most journalists know how to be tenacious. They know how to chase down a story, how to speak truth to power. In articles about atrocities committed by groups or nations that are not Western allies, nobody ever perishes in a blast. Buildings don’t collapse of their own volition. Civilian victims aren’t ordered by their interviewers to performatively condemn groups with which they have no affiliation. The violence is named, as is its perpetrator. Why this sudden clarity becomes utter fog when the subject is an Arab child torn to shreds by shrapnel or a Black motorist shot dead in a traffic stop or an Indigenous activist beaten at a pipeline protest is a function of preemptive deference to power.”

“You know what it's like when you see a rainbow?" I said carefully, like I was walking along a narrow, high wall, resisting the urge to put my arms out for balance. "Yeah?" she answered just as slowly. "Like everyone stops to look at it, to appreciate it, because you can't help but take in all those colors? That's what it's been like, having you at the shop. You walk into a room and everything gets more vivid, and people can't help but feel... joyful." My unspoken words floated in the air between us. You make me smile. You make me laugh. When you open your mouth and say something saucy, all I can think about is the curve of your lips.”