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Quote by Suzanne Finnamore

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Split: A Memoir of Divorce

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Suzanne Finnamore

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“It is impossible for white Americans to grasp the depths and dimensions of the Negro’s dilemma without understanding what it means to be a Negro in America. Of course it is not easy to perform this act of empathy. Putting oneself in another person’s place is always fraught with difficulties. Over and over again it is said in the black ghettos of America that “no white person can ever understand what it means to be a Negro.” There is good reason for this assumption, for there is very little in the life and experience of white America that can compare to the curse this society has put on color. And yet, if the present chasm of hostility, fear and distrust is to be bridged, the white man must begin to walk in the pathways of his black brothers and feel some of the pain and hurt that throb without letup in their daily lives.”

PainUnderstandingRaceEmpathyAfrican AmericansBlacksRace RelationsWhites
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
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“The central quality in the Negro’s life is pain—pain so old and so deep that it shows in almost every moment of his existence. It emerges in the cheerlessness of his sorrow songs, in the melancholy of his blues and in the pathos of his sermons. The Negro while laughing sheds invisible tears that no hand can wipe away. In a highly competitive world, the Negro knows that a cloud of persistent denial stands between him and the sun, between him and life and power, between him and whatever he needs.”

PainSorrowRacismDenialMelancholyAfrican AmericansBlacks
Book:Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
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“Emily always turned to language to soothe or lessen her distress. The letters could have served as a reminder of the pain she had experienced, but survived. Whatever purpose she had in writing remained a secret known only to her. She never shied away from looking anguish in the eye or contemplating its aftermath. To do so was an act of dominion over misery and resistance to inertia.”

WritingPainResistanceEmily Dickinson
Book:These Fevered Days: Ten Pivotal Moments in the Making of Emily Dickinson
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