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Negro Quotes

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Negro Quotes

“This past, the Negro's past, of rope, fire torture, castration, infanticide, rape; death and humiliation; fear by day and night, fear as deep as the marrow of the bone; doubt that he was worthy of life, since everyone around him denied it; sorrow for this women, for his kinfolk, for his children, who needed his protection, and whom he could not protect; rage, hatred, and murder, hatred for white men so deep that it often turned against him and his own, and made all love, all trust, all joy impossible - this past, this endless struggle to achieve and reveal and confirm a human identity, human authority, yet contains, for all its horror, something very beautiful. I do not mean to be sentimental about suffering - enough is certainly as good as a feast - but people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are. That man who is forced each day to snatch manhood, his identity, out of the fire of human cruelty that rages to destroy it knows, if he survives his effort, and even if he does not survive it, something about himself and human life that no school on earth - and indeed, no church - can teach. He achieves his own authority, and that is unshakable. This is because, in order to save his life, he is forced to look beneath appearances, to take nothing for granted, to hear the meaning behind the words. If one is continually surviving the worst that life can bring, one eventually ceases to be controlled by a fear of what life can bring; whatever it brings must be borne. And at this level of experience one's bitterness begins to be palatable, and hatred becomes too heavy a sack to carry. The apprehension of life here so briefly and inadequately sketched has been the experience of generations of Negroes, and it helps to explain how they have endured and how they have been able to produce children of kindergarten age who can walk through mobs to get to school. It demands great force and great cunning continually to assault the mighty and indifferent fortress of white supremacy, as Negroes in this country have done so long. It demands great spiritual resilience not to hate the hater whose foot is on your neck, and even greater miracle of perception and charity not to teach your child to hate. The Negro boys and girls who are facing mobs today come out of a long line of improbable aristocrats - the only genuine aristocrats this country has produced. I say "this country" because their frame of reference was totally American. They were hewing out of the mountain of white supremacy the stone of their individuality. I have great respect for that unsung army of black men and women who trudged down back lanes and entered back doors, saying "Yes, sir" and "No, Ma'am" in order to acquire a new roof for the schoolhouse, new books, a new chemistry lab, more beds for the dormitories, more dormitories. They did not like saying "Yes, sir" and "No Ma'am", but the country was in no hurry to educate Negroes, these black men and women knew that the job had to be done, and they put their pride in their pockets in order to do it. It is very hard to believe that they were in anyway inferior to the white men and women who opened those back doors. It is very hard to believe that those men and women, raising their children, eating their greens, crying their curses, weeping their tears, singing their songs, making their love, as the sun rose, as the sun set, were in any way inferior to the white men and women who crept over to share these splendors after the sun went down. ... I am proud of these people not because of their color but because of their intelligence and their spiritual force and their beauty. The country should be proud of them, too, but, alas, not many people in this country even know of their existence.”

SufferingCompassionBeautyNegro
Author:James Baldwin
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“Eventually, some black thinkers believe, this "separation" may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals and in which the white man will no longer load every phrase with unconscious suggestions that he has something to "concede" to black men or that he wants to help black men "overcome" their blackness.”

BlackJusticeWhiteRaceRacismSeparationRacistNegro
Book:Black Like Me
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“Neuronigger (Sonnet 2316) Call me pilgrim or call me beggar, you be my Shams, I, your Mevlana. Call me neuro or call me nigger, to some I'm Valium, to others Viagra. Without salt from the South of Earth, world philosophy, world science, world poetry, all collapse into dust. Wipe the south from history, you wipe out culture and civilization, wipe the north, you spare the planet the most uncivilized of criminals. Yet, holocaust for holocaust leaves humanity in plaster cast; human defends human, dreams this Neuronigger.”

Social JusticeCivil RightsGenocideNonviolenceSufismColonialismHate CrimeEthnic CleansingNegroBlack Poetry
Book:Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat
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“Question: Is there anything in the Bible that reveals the origin of the Negro? Answer: It is generally believed that the curse which Noah pronounced upon Canaan was the origin of the Black race. Certain it is that when Noah said, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," he pictured the future of the Colored race. They have been and are a race of servants, but now in the dawn of the twentieth century, we are all coming to see this matter of service in its true light and find that the only real joy in life is in serving others; not bossing them. There is no servant in the world as good as a good Colored servant, and they joy that he gets from rendering faithful service is one of the purest joys there is in the world.”

RacismBlmInstitutional RacismInstitutionalized RacismJehovahs WitnessesJwNegroWtbtsCt Russell
Book:The Golden Age
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“Come close, be my buddy, then after a while call me nigga - it won't affect our friendship one bit. But out of the blue if you walk up to me as a complete stranger and call me that, then you only deepen the wounds caused by white oppressors throughout human history.”

Black Lives MatterBlack HistorySystemic RacismBlack History MonthRacial ProfilingBlack WritersNegroNiggaBlack Writer
Book:Şehit Sevda Society: Even in Death I Shall Live
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