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Quote by Henry Miller

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The Air-Conditioned Nightmare

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Henry Miller

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“Filthy-minded old bastard,' he muttered viciously under his breath. No wonder the world such a rotten place, rotten and filthy and cheap and smelly. Where is that place they talk of and paint nice pictures of and described in all the homey magazines? Where is that place with the clean, white cottages surrounding the new, red brick church with the clean, white steeple, were the families all have two children, one boy and one girl, and a shiny new car in the garage and a dog and a cat and life is like living in the land of the happily-ever-after? Surely it must be around here someplace, someplace in America. Or is it just that it's not for me? Maybe I dealt myself out, but what about that young kid on Burnside who was in the army and found it wasn't enough so that he has to keep proving to everyone who comes in for a cup of coffee that he was fighting for his country like the button on his shirt says he did because the army didn't do anything about his face to make him look more American? And what about the poor niggers on Jackson Street who can't find anything better to do than spit on the sidewalk and show me the way to Tokyo? They're on the outside looking in, just like that kid and just like me and just like everybody else I’ve ever seen or known. Even Mr. Carrick. Why isn't he in? Why is he on the outside squandering his goodness on outcasts like me? Maybe the answer is that there is no in. Maybe the whole damn country is pushing and shoving and screaming to get into some place that doesn't exist, because they don't know that the outside could be the inside if only they would stop all this pushing and shoving and screaming, and they haven't got enough sense to realise that. That makes sense. I've got the answer all figured out, simple and neat, and sensible.”

RacismAmerican DreamDissillusionment
Book:No-No Boy
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“The traumatized person is often relieved simply to learn the true name of her condition. By ascertaining her diagnosis, she begins the process of mastery. No longer imprisoned in the wordlessness of the trauma, she discovers that there is a language for her experience. She discovers that she is not alone; others have suffered in similar ways. She discovers further that she is not crazy; the traumatic syndromes are normal human responses to extreme circumstances. And she discovers, finally, that she is not doomed to suffer this condition indefinitely; she can expect to recover, as others have recovered...”

ScienceHopeTraumaRecovery
Author:Judith Lewis Herman
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“This entire experience, although seemingly harmless in the grand cosmic scheme of life, was a perfect microcosm of the American dream. The good minority earned his rank by beating up the bad minority--a tale as old as the founding of this country. You try to gain as much proximity to whiteness and as much distance as you can from Blackness or the villain of the day, in order to become accepted by the mainstream.”

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Book:Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American
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“Like most young people in Ghana’s rural areas in those days, for much of my childhood I pictured America as a heavenly place where neither poverty nor any of the myriad problems we saw all around us existed. From what little history I was taught in elementary and middle school, I knew about slavery and how Blacks in America were treated during that era, but I also knew that slavery had long since been abolished. What I envisioned was an America in which people of all races lived happily and in perfect harmony.”

GoalAmerican DreamAfricaDreamingExpats
Book:The Boy from Boadua: One African’s Journey of Hunger and Sacrifice in Pursuit of a Dream
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“En gång i världen var USA det förlovade landet i världen för invandrare som vi. Vi har slitit som djur av tvång och av tacksamhet, och se hur de behandlar oss nu! Utlänningar blir behandlade som kriminella, om det ska vara vår tids Amerika åker jag hellre tillbaka till Indien.”

RacistAmerican DreamDiversity And InclusionRacism In AmericaRacial DiscriminationRacism And CultureImmigrant ExperienceUsa ImmigrationThe Promise Of A Better Life
Author:Marc Levy
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“Nothing about the the birth of America is great - America is a terrorist nation, built by terrorists who invaded other people's land, stripped them of their homes, and built a spin-off of the ruthless British empire over their blood and bones. You think America's homeless problem is something new! It's not - America has been making people homeless ever since the pilgrims set foot in Plymouth Rock. The pilgrims were not pioneers, they were terrorists.”

SlaveryAmerican DreamColonialismAmerican HistoryImperialismWhite SupremacyAmerican CultureColonizationNative AmericansColonial History
Book:Tum Dunya Tek Millet: Greatest Country on Earth is Earth
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