Quotes about blackness
page 9

“Children learn the fundamental principles of natural law at a very early age. Thus they very early understand that one child must not, without just cause, strike or otherwise hurt, another; that one child must not assume any arbitrary control or domination over another; that one child must not, either by force, deceit, or stealth, obtain possession of anything that belongs to another; that if one child commits any of these wrongs against another, it is not only the right of the injured child to resist, and, if need be, punish the wrongdoer, and compel him to make reparation, but that it is also the right, and the moral duty, of all other children, and all other persons, to assist the injured party in defending his rights, and redressing his wrongs. These are fundamental principles of natural law, which govern the most important transactions of man with man. Yet children learn them earlier than they learn that three and three are six, or five and five ten. Their childish plays, even, could not be carried on without a constant regard to them; and it is equally impossible for persons of any age to live together in peace on any other conditions.

It would be no extravagance to say that, in most cases, if not in all, mankind at large, young and old, learn this natural law long before they have learned the meanings of the words by which we describe it. In truth, it would be impossible to make them understand the real meanings of the words, if they did not understand the nature of the thing itself. To make them understand the meanings of the words justice and injustice before knowing the nature of the things themselves, would be as impossible as it would be to make them understand the meanings of the words heat and cold, wet and dry, light and darkness, white and black, one and two, before knowing the nature of the things themselves. Men necessarily must know sentiments and ideas, no less than material things, before they can know the meanings of the words by which we describe them.”

Lysander Spooner (1808–1887) Anarchist, Entrepreneur, Abolitionist

Section IV, p. 9–10
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter I. The Science of Justice.

Men, Children, Truth, Age

“The people who are overtly bigoted against gays now are often the same people who were openly bigoted against blacks years ago.”

Aron Ra (1962) Aron Ra is an atheist activist and the host of the Ra-Men Podcast

Youtube, Other, Republican Theocracy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSjNg7nQvB0 (November 4, 2012)

People

“Behind her chair, from a wall covered in a very expensive velvet-flock paper, a portrait of her grandfather looked down. He had been an Episcopalian bishop, but the picture showed him in the costume of a New England gentleman keeping up the Old English custom of riding to hounds: red coat, brown boots, distinguished with a white dog-collar and black silk front.
Hugh referred to him as being dressed to kill.
The salad was replaced—though Hugh had sampled only a mouthful of his—by a dish of cold fish with mayonnaise. He didn’t even touch this course. He was suddenly afraid of it because it had come from the sea.”

John Brunner book The Sheep Look Up

February “DISGRACE”
The Sheep Look Up (1972)

Dogs, Fish, Sea

“Regarding the controversial article “Society consists of people”, it is a fact that negroes or negroid, Sub-Saharan persons live in something resembling a western society only in places where order is kept by a white system of violent dominance (police, army and the justice system). It is likewise a fact that the so-called western structures start to crumble and sinking towards the typical African state of being starts immediately as blacks reach a majority or dominant position. Examples of this include post-independence Haiti and post-apartheid South Africa.”

Jussi Halla-aho (1971) Finnish Slavic linguist, blogger and a politician

Jussi Halla-aho (2007), published in the blog Scripta Lisäyksiä edelliseen http://www.halla-aho.com/scripta/lisayksia_edelliseen.html, May 9, 2007 2005-09

People, Justice, Personality

“I will have to leave for Paris as soon as you return. I did two drawings [black on paper] with pen and in little dots - a 'Little Market' and a 'St. Martin (Pig dealers)'. It would be a good thing if I could sell them to some newspaper, that would bring us a few pennies… I still don't know what I am going to do, for Heymann seems completely indifferent. He probably knows my position and naturally is waiting for me to reduce my prices, just as Durand did last time… If we could place these we could get a few cents while waiting for this terrible month of January to pass… These drawings matted look very well.”

Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) French painter

Quote of Pissarro, in a letter, Paris, 5 December 1886, to his son Lucien; in Camille Pissarro - Letters to His Son Lucien ed. John Rewald, with assistance of Lucien Pissarro; from the unpublished French letters; transl. Lionel Abel; Pantheon Books Inc. New York, second edition, 1943, p. 86
1880's

Nature, Time, Waiting, Drawing

“Now that I have been convicted, I want to explain my actions so that you … should understand why I chose to join the struggle for the freedom of my people…. It was during my primary school years that the bare facts concerning the realities of South African society and its discrepancies began to unfold before me. I remember a period in the early 1960s, when there was a great deal of political tension, and we often used to encounter armed police in Soweto…. I remember the humiliation to which my parents were subjected by whites in shops and in other places where we encountered them, and the poverty. All these things had their influence on my young mind … and by the time I went to Orlando West High School, I was already beginning to question the injustice of the society … and to ask why nothing was being done to change it. It is true that I was trained in the use of weapons and explosives. The basis of my training was in sabotage, which was to be aimed at institutions and not people. I did not wish to add unnecessarily to the grievous loss of human life that had already been incurred. It has been suggested that our aim was to annihilate the white people of this country; nothing could be further from the truth. The ANC is a national liberation movement committed to the liberation of all the people of South Africa, black and white, from racial fear, hatred and oppression. I am married and have one child, and would like nothing more than to have more children, and to live with my wife and children with all the people in this country. One day that might be possible - if not for me, then at least for my brothers.”

Tokyo Sexwale (1953) South African politician

Addressing the Pretoria Supreme Court judge in 1978 shortly after his conviction on a charge of high treason, as quoted in Down with Afrikaans - Oakes, D. (ed.), 1988. Illustrated history of South Africa – The real story, Reader’s Digest: Cape Town http://www.sahistory.org.za/archive/down-afrikaans-oakes-d-ed1988-illustrated-history-south-africa-%26ndash%3B-real-story-reader%E2%80%99s-digest-, sahistory.org.za

Life, Children, People, Truth

“No Erewhonian believes that the world is as black as it has been here painted, but it is one of their peculiarities that they very often do not believe or mean things which they profess to regard as indisputable.”

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) novelist

Source: Erewhon (1872), Ch. 20

World, Painting

“One must always paint in opposition to nature, and to one’s own 'mood'. To let oneself go is a weakness, a sort of hysterics. If you are full of red, choose a green or a blue; if you feel like yellow, choose grey or black. In this continuous opposition lies the entire secret of plastic creation… To create a great work of art demands self-mortification.”

Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931) Dutch architect, painter, draughtsman and writer

Quote in his article 'Elementarism', as cited in De Stijl – Van Doesburg Issue, January 1932, pp. 17–19
1926 – 1931

Secret, Art, Feeling, Mood

“In one famous episode, members of the Congressional Black Caucus walked through a crowd of tea party protesters seeking a provocation. Subsequently they claimed the attendants screamed the N-word and other epithets at them. The press reported it all as fact. Andrew, noting the sea of cameras and iPhones at the event, offered a $10,000 reward to anyone who could provide proof of the CBC's claims. No one came forward. That was the Andrew Breitbart I was proud to call my friend.”

Jonah Goldberg (1969) American political writer and pundit

2010s, 2018, Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe (2018)

Tea, Sea

“The biggest challenge [for solar power] is escaping from the economic effects of vendor lock-in where large investments in nuclear and traditional energy sources keep us 'locked-in' to feeding monsters that will bring us down an economic black hole. It's rather like the play The Little Shop of Horrors where a man-eating plant is initially fed small amounts, but then its voracious appetite sends it into a downward spiral swallowing up anyone that gets in its way.”

Derek Abbott (1960) Physicist, engineer

On energy supply and solar power

Way

“Judah Benjamin said, "The nations of Europe continue to abhor our policy, try as we will to convince them that we cannot do otherwise. Mr. Mason has written from London that Her Majesty's government might well have been willing to extend us recognition two years ago, were it not for the continuation of slavery among us: so Lord Russell has assured him, at any rate. Mr. Thouvenel, the French foreign minister, has expressed similar sentiments to Mr. Slidell in Paris." Slavery, Lee thought. In the end, the world's outside view of the Confederate States of America was colored almost exclusively by its response to the South's peculiar institution. Never mind that the U. S. Constitution was a revocable compact between independent states, never mind that the North had consistently used its numerical majority to force through Congress tariffs that worked only to ruin the South. So long as black men were bought and sold, all the high ideals of the Confederacy would be ignored.”

Harry Turtledove book The Guns of the South

Source: The Guns of the South (1992), p. 234

Men, World, Color

“I cannot forget that the Nobel Peace Prize was not just something taking place, but it was a commission — a commission to work harder than I had ever worked before for the brotherhood of Man. This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances. But even if it were not present, I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me, the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I am speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the Good News was meant for all men, for communists and capitalists, for their children and ours, for black and white, for revolutionary and conservative. Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved His enemies so fully that he died for them? What, then, can I say to the Vietcong, or to Castro, or to Mao, as a faithful minister to Jesus Christ? Can I threaten them with death, or must I not share with them my life?”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Love, Life, Death, Men

“My house got robbed in New York. I didn't even call the police. I wanted to, but I couldn't. My crib is too nice. It's not that it's too nice, but it's too nice for me. You know how the police are in New York. Soon as I open the door, they'll be like, "He's still here! Open and shut case, Johnson. Apparently this black guy broke in and hung up pictures of his family everywhere. Never seen anything like it."”

Dave Chappelle (1973) American comedian

Comedy specials, HBO Comedy Half-Hour: Dave Chappelle (1998)

Family, Guy, Housing

“The sky was horribly dark, but one could distinctly see tattered clouds, and between them fathomless black patches. Suddenly I noticed in one of these patches a star, and began watching it intently. That was because that star had given me an idea: I decided to kill myself that night.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man

Source: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man (1877), I

Star, Idea, Night

“And what is a week? Poof— and like that a week is gone by. Poof— there is a good week, and poof -- there it is gone. But a week doesn't go by, and doesn't go by, when you are waiting for a little black rabbit. Oh, a waiting week is long. It is like eternity.”

Meindert DeJong book Shadrach

Shadrach (1957)

Waiting

“One does not leave gold untouched, when one discovers the yellow metal in filth. One is ver ready to pick it up. What is intrinsically good will never change no matter where it is found. A diamond is often spotted amidst black blocks of coal. Lotus blossoms in a swamp and the beautiful rose blooms among thorns. In fact the presence of such invaluable wonders enhances the importance of a place no matter how sullied it is!”

Amitabh Bachchan (1942) Indian actor

Source: Soul Curry for You and Me: An Empowering Philosophy that Can Enrich Your Life, P. 21-22.

Beauty, Change

“By staving off crime and communism, the apartheid regime, a vast repressive apparatus though it was, saved black South Africans from an even worse moral and material fate.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa
2010s, Into the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid South Africa (2011)

Fate, Communication

“Don't terrorize. Organize. Don't burn. Give kids a chance to learn … The real answer to race problems in this country is education. Not burning and killing. Be ready. Be qualified. Own something. Be somebody. That's Black Power.”

James Brown (1933–2006) American singer, songwriter, musician, and recording artist

Statement on national TV during the 1968 riots in Washington, DC after the Martin Luther King assassination. http://likethedew.com/2010/04/26/james-brown-and-his-changing-times-rockin-the-white-house-8

Education, Problem, Learning, Chance

“For me chemistry represented an indefinite cloud of future potentialities which enveloped my life to come in black volutes torn by fiery flashes, like those which had hidden Mount Sinai. Like Moses, from that cloud I expected my law, the principle of order in me, around me, and in the world. I was fed up with books, which I still continued to gulp down with indiscreet voracity, and searched for a key to the highest truths; there must be a key, and I was certain that, owing to some monstrous conspiracy to my detriment and the world's, I would not get in school. In school they loaded with me with tons of notions that I diligently digested, but which did not warm the blood in my veins. I would watch the buds swell in spring, the mica glint in the granite, my own hands, and I would say to myself: "I will understand this, too, I will understand everything, but not the way they want me to. I will find a shortcut, I will make a lock-pick, I will push open the doors."
It was enervating, nauseating, to listen to lectures on the problem of being and knowing, when everything around us was a mystery pressing to be revealed: the old wood of the benches, the sun's sphere beyond the windowpanes and the roofs, the vain flight of the pappus down in the June air. Would all the philosophers and all the armies of the world be able to construct this little fly? No, nor even understand it: this was a shame and an abomination, another road must be found.”

Primo Levi book The Periodic Table

"Hydrogen"
The Periodic Table (1975)

Life, Truth, Books, World

“Young, blond fags with powder-blue eyes and soft shoes skipped along arm-in-arm. Chinese girls with long hair and black stockings carried metal pots into Ernie’s Delicatessen for bean cake, barbequed duck, Chinese curds and steamed rice. Art students from the Art Institute, draftsmen from Heald’s College and law students from S. F. Law School walked by in carefree abandon, none of them in pain, all with beautiful girls in red slippers. They had leather, beads and books and pipes and scabs of hair on their interesting faces. Polk Street at night was always Christmas Eve for lonely men such as myself.”

Oscar Zeta Acosta book Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo

Source: Autobiography of a Brown Buffalo (1972), p. 51.

Men, Pain, Books, School

“December, herald of destruction,
takes you on a long stroll
through the black torsos of trees
and leaves scorched in autumn’s fire,as if to say: so much then for
your secrets and your treasures,
the fervent trill of small birds,
the promises of summer months.”

Adam Zagajewski (1945) Poet

December.

Secret, Autumn, Bird, Tree

“The 'black armband' view of our history reflects a belief that most Australian history since 1788 has been little more than a disgraceful story of imperialism, exploitation, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. I take a very different view. I believe that the balance sheet of our history is one of heroic achievement and that we have achieved much more as a nation of which we can be proud of than which we should be ashamed.”

John Howard (1939) 25th Prime Minister of Australia

1996 Sir Robert Menzies Lecture

History

“In the first televised presidential debate, Nixon thought he was upholding some puritan gravitas by refusing makeup; by choosing the citizen’s black suit; choosing the poor man’s version of natural aristocracy. Nixon was easily the more able in his grasp of history and the workings of government. John F. Kennedy, gold-dusted and ghostwritten, appeared completely natural. Nixon perspired. In an instant, I saw what many other Americans saw that night: Harvard College will always beat Whittier College in America. The game is fixed and there is nothing to be done about it.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

History, Game, Nature, Appearance

“The pot calls the kettle black.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book IV, Ch. 43.

“Well OK, if you want to call it emotional. I’m just saying how ever you want to categorize, it I don’t think its much different from the black woman in the psych ward. I don’t think it is different from an Anorexics who is already terribly thin looking in a mirror and thinking, ‘I feel fat.’ Yes they really feel that way, but they aren’t. Bruce Jenner is not a woman. Every cell in his body is the cell of a man.”

Ann Coulter (1961) author, political commentator

2015-06-02
Coulter: Jenner Transgender Behavior a ‘Mental Illness,’ Shouldn’t Be Celebrated
http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/06/03/coulter-jenner-transgender-behavior-a-mental-illness-shouldnt-be-celebrated/
2015

Way, Feeling, Thinking

“Cause federal and state was built for a black fate
Her emptiness was filled with beatings and court dates
They fabricated cases, hoping one would stick
And said she robbed places that didn't exist
In the midst of threats on her life and being caged with Aryan whites
Through dark halls of hate she carried the light”

Common (rapper) (1972) American rapper, actor and author from Illinois

"A Song for Assata" (Track 15)
Albums, Like Water for Chocolate (2000)

Life, Hate, Fate, Hope

“I can't really hear the audience applause when I'm on stage. I'm totally immersed in the piece. But sometimes I get a lot of it and wonder, "Now, why did they applaud here?" If it's a white crowd, they usually applaud because they think it's a pretty movement. If it's a black crowd, it's usually because they identify with the message.”

Judith Jamison (1943) American dancer

WomenSports magazine, p. 14 (September 1975)

Thinking

“There is no mask that temptation cannot wear, and the idea that Satan is purely a logician is an illusion held by not a few naive people. Many a shifty old man sees him as an opponent in an academic argument, but if he does the observer is still at the stage of games and trifles. Sometimes, though not often, the black desire to harm wins out over quicker and less bitter delights. When that happens, evil shows itself for what it truly is, not a way of life, but an attack on life itself.”

Georges Bernanos (1888–1948) French writer

Source: L'imposture (The Impostor), 1927, pp.74–75

Life, People, Way, Game

“But tell me, black and white, may they be used or not, are they forbidden fruit? You... think that when the shadows are dark, ay, black, that it is all wrong then, don't you? I don't think so... Rembrandt and Hals, didn't they use black? And Velasquez???”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Quote in his letter to brother Theo, from Nuenen, The Netherlands, Autumn 1885; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 428) p. 31 1880s, 1885

Thinking

“There’s a lot of people sitting around in rooms discussing how to make it happen as opposed to just, like, doing it — asking: ‘Do you have any 45-year-old-woman friends who you think are really talented who could submit an application to us?’ ‘Do you have any black friends who are great writers who haven’t had a shot.”

Samantha Bee (1969) Canadian comedic actress and author

"Smirking in the Boys’ Room" https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/samantha-bee-full-frontal-c-v-r.html, Rebecca Traister, The Cut, Jan 2016

People, Thinking

“If Negroes are only “white men with black skins, nothing more, nothing less,” then, conversely, white men are only Negroes with white skins, nothing more, nothing less. This means that all cultural differences, hereditary predispositions, and historical traditions are irrelevant and meaningless. It means, in other words, that history is meaningless. And how can one be an historian if it is his purpose to deny history? The white man has behind him centuries of Christian culture, and the discipline and selective breeding this faith requires. Although the white man may reject this faith and subject himself instead to the requirements of humanism, he is still a product of this Christian past. The Negro is a product of a radically different past, and his heredity is governed by radically different consideration.”

Rousas John Rushdoony (1916–2001) American theologian

Source: Writings, The Biblical Philosophy of History (1969), p. 88

Men, Faith, History, Past

“The main contemporary obstacle facing African Americans is neither white racism, as many liberals claim, nor black genetic deficiency, as Charles Murray and others imply. Rather it involves destructive and pathological cultural patterns of behavior: excessive reliance on government, conspiratorial paranoia about racism, a resistance to academic achievement as "acting white," a celebration of the criminal and outlaw as authentically black, and the normalization of illegitimacy and dependency.”

Dinesh D'Souza (1961) Indian-American political commentator, filmmaker, author

Source: Books, The End of Racism (1995), Ch. 1

Behavior, Dependency

“Hurja poika: The grave of the wild one is deep and black. You get chilly waiting for the resurrection.”

Pauli Hanhiniemi (1964) Finnish musician and composer

Waiting

“They were long, dark, black years.”

Samir Geagea (1952) Lebanese politician and war lord

As quoted in "Lebanese ex-warlord is released" in BBC News (26 July 2005) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4716701.stm

“Body and soul, Black America reveals the extreme questions of contemporary life, questions of freedom and identity: How can I be who I am?”

June Jordan (1936–2002) Poet, essayist, playwright, feminist and bisexual activist

Source: Black Studies: Bringing Back The Person (1969), p. 46

Life, Soul, Question, Freedom

“Being a black woman, I've often felt I've been judged by my sex and my race, and I have always known that it shouldn't hamper me.”

Halle Berry (1966) American actress

Mike Goodridge (March 26, 2005) "The seductress", Herald Sun, p. W10.

Sex

“"Tighter and Tighter" was actually written around the same time as "Black Hole Sun." In fact, I did a demo with four songs on it to play for the band. "Black Hole Sun," "Sounds Like Days," "Tighter and Tighter" and a song called "Anxious." We blew off "Anxious" entirely and recorded "Tighter and Tighter" for the last record. It was the last song we did. It was number 16 and we ran out of studio time. We had the rhythm tracks done and it was just needing vocals and my guitar solos. We just ran out of time. It was falling flat anyway. I changed the arrangement a little bit.”

Chris Cornell (1964–2017) American singer-songwriter, musician

Soundgarden Era

Change, Time, Sun

“I find it increasingly necessary to express my ideas first in engraving or lithography so that they may develop before I start to paint. Every year my form and expression become more sensitive, and my ideas frequently have to pass through three graphic stages before I can start on the canvas... I can hear you say no, that is impossible because the value of the colors demands quite different treatment from black and white, but it is the inner idea that I try to establish firmly through graphic preparation.”

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) German painter, sculptor, engraver and printmaker

In a letter to de:Gustav Schiefler, 1924, in Annemarie Dube-Heynig, Kirchner: His Graphic Art, Greenwich, Conn.: New York Graphic Society, 1961, p. 96 - note 46
1920's

Color, Idea, Painting

“Intersectionality is a concept, not a theory. It is a description of how different forms of oppression--racism, sexism, LGBTQ oppression and all other forms--interact with each other and become fused into a single experience. … Intersectionality is another way of describing "simultaneity of oppression," "overlapping oppressions," "interlocking oppressions" or any number of other terms that Black feminists used to describe the intersection of race, class and gender.”

Sharon Smith (writer) (1956) American historian

A Marxist Case For Intersectionality (2017)

Way

“There are only two possible statements that can be made about the worlds," the Black Pope of the Carlist Hills had lectured one day. "Alpha: There is a God. Omega: there is not a God. To adhere to either of these two statements strongly is to be logical at least. Not to do so is to be in the snivelling wasteland between and to have no point of contact with logic or reason.”

R. A. Lafferty (1914–2002) American writer

Source: The Flame is Green (1971), Ch. 5 : Muerte De Boscaje

God, World

“There is a place,
List, daughter! in a black and hollow vault,
Where day is never seen; there shines no sun,
But flaming horror of consuming fires;
A lightless sulphur, choked with smoky fogs
Of an infected darkness; in this place
Dwell many thousand thousand sundry sorts
Of never-dying deaths.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act III, sc. v.
Tis Pity She's a Whore (1629-33?)

Death, Sun, Daughters

“I care not what black spiritual crisis we may come through or what delightful spiritual Canaan we may enter, no blessing of the Christian life becomes continually possessed unless we are men and women of regular, daily, unhurried, secret lingerings in prayer.”

J. Sidlow Baxter (1903–1999) Australian theologian

Reported in Wright L. Lassiter, The Power of Prayer (2005), p. xiv.

Life, Women, Men, Secret

“We must pursue the removal of church property by any means necessary in order to secure for ourselves a fund of several hundred million gold rubles (do not forget the immense wealth of some monasteries and lauras). Without this fund any government work in general, any economic build-up in particular, and any upholding of soviet principles in Genoa especially is completely unthinkable. In order to get our hands on this fund of several hundred million gold rubles (and perhaps even several hundred billion), we must do whatever is necessary. But to do this successfully is possible only now. All considerations indicate that later on we will fail to do this, for no other time, besides that of desperate famine, will give us such a mood among the general mass of peasants that would ensure us the sympathy of this group, or, at least, would ensure us the neutralization of this group in the sense that victory in the struggle for the removal of church property unquestionably and completely will be on our side.
One clever writer on statecraft correctly said that if it is necessary for the realization of a well-known political goal to perform a series of brutal actions then it is necessary to do them in the most energetic manner and in the shortest time, because masses of people will not tolerate the protracted use of brutality. … Now victory over the reactionary clergy is assured us completely. In addition, it will be more difficult for the major part of our foreign adversaries among the Russian emigres abroad, i. e., the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Milyukovites, to fight against us if we, precisely at this time, precisely in connection with the famine, suppress the reactionary clergy with utmost haste and ruthlessness.
Therefore, I come to the indisputable conclusion that we must precisely now smash the Black Hundreds clergy most decisively and ruthlessly and put down all resistance with such brutality that they will not forget it for several decades. … The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie that we succeed in shooting on this occasion, the better because this "audience" must precisely now be taught a lesson in such a way that they will not dare to think about any resistance whatsoever for several decades.”

Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) Russian politician, led the October Revolution

Letter to Comrade Molotov for the Politburo (19 March 1922) http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/ae2bkhun.html Variant translation: It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables. … I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come. The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better. As translated in The Unknown Lenin : From the Secret Archive (1996) edited by Richard Pipes, pp. 152-4 1920s

People, Way, Mood, Thinking

“You carry the weapon. That's how they don't see it coming. You're the one. They talk about 'color blind or blind to your color.' You said it yourself. You don't send the Black Liberation Army into Wall Street to conduct an action. You don't send the American Indian Movement into downtown Seattle to conduct an action. Who do you send? You. With your beard shaved, your hair cut close and wearing a banker's suit. There's probably a whole lot more to it, you know that, but there is where you start. Who carries the front-end? Why is it always people of color carrying the weight on this, when people who are much more proximate in terms of acceptability to the centers of power, professing solidarity and principled nonviolence on the one hand, and critiquing the practice of those who are carrying the weight on the other. Why is that?”

Ward Churchill (1947) Political activist

Discussion at the Seattle Independent Media Center http://www.radio4all.net/index.php?op=program-info&program_id=7592&nav=&, August 10, 2003

People, Color

“Myspace is a great way to keep in touch with friends whom you don't care enough about to actually have a conversation with. Why bother calling to say 'How are you?' when you can just surf their page and post an mpeg of a guy farting on his cat?
[Myspace is] this website where young people can post pictures and info about themselves for anyone to see. When I first heard about it, I thought to myself, 'Finally a Yellow Pages for sex offenders. Why didn't I think of that?'
The most popular (American Idol) contestants have been: white people that sound black, young people that sound old, and straight guys that sound gay.
The final five are exactly like The Breakfast Club: There's the rebel(Chris Daughtry), the princess (Katharine McPhee), the nerd (Elliot Yamin), the weirdo (Paris Bennett)… and of course, the principal (Taylor Hicks). What? He's old!
(Ryan Phillippe & Reese Witherspoon) Broke up, (Kid Rock & Pamela Anderson) broke up, (Vince Vaughn & Jennifer Aniston) broke up, (Kate Moss & Pete Doherty) coked up. They said it wouldn't last; not the marriage, the stash. 007,.08, 1.2, 215. Came out, came out, (Tom Brady and Bridget Moynihan) came in, (Brady and Gisele Bündchen) came in. Hates Jews, went to rehab, loves Jews; hates gays, went to rehab, now loves gays; hates blacks, didn't go to rehab, still hates blacks. 'Father Knows Best', (with Britney Spears) 'Mad About You,' (Spears without panties) 'Leave It to Beaver.' New father, new father, new father? R. I. P., D. U. I., P. O. W. 'You're a hypocrite,' 'you're fat,' 'you're rude,' 'you're ugly,' whoa, whoa, whoa, guys. Stop fighting, you're both right. Booze, pot, Vicodin, crack, booze, pot, Vicodin, and crack.”

David Spade (1964) American stand-up comedian

The Showbiz Show with David Spade

Love, Hate, Marriage, People

““Woman” was the test, but not every woman seemed to qualify. Black women, of course, were virtually invisible within the protracted campaign for woman suffrage. As for white working-class women, the suffrage leaders were probably impressed at first by the organizing efforts and militancy of their working-class sisters. But as it turned out, the working women themselves did not enthusiastically embrace the cause of woman suffrage.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Women, Race and Class (1983)

Women, Sister, Effort

“The next monument visited was the great Jain temple built only a few years before by Shantidas Jhaveri, one of the wealthiest men of Gujarat in his day and high in favour both with Shah Jahan and after him with Aurangzeb. …In 1638, however, when Mandelslo visited the place, this temple which he calls ‘ the principal mosque of the Banyas ’ was in all its pristine splendour and ‘ without dispute one of the noblest structures that could be seen’. ‘It was then new,’ he adds, ‘ for the Founder, who was a rich Banya merchant, named Shantidas, was living in my time.
As Mandelslo’s description is the earliest account we have of this famous monument, which was desecrated only seven years after visit by the Orders of Aurangzeb, then viceroy of Gujarat (1645), we shall reproduce it at some length. It stood in the middle of a great court which was enclosed by a high wall of freestone. All about this wall on the inner side was a gallery, similar to the cloisters of the monasteries in Europe, with a large number of cells, in each of which was placed a statue in white or black marble. These figures no doubt represented the Jain Tirthankars, but Mandelslo may be forgiven when he speaks of each of them as ‘ representing a woman naked, sitting, and having her legs lying cross under her, according to the mode of the country. Some of the cells had three statues in them, namely, a large one between two smaller ones.’ At the entrance to the temple stood two elephants of black marble in life- size and on one of them was seated an effigy of the builder. The walls of the temple were adorned with figures of men and animals. At the further end of the building were the shrines consisting of three chapels divided from each other by wooden rails. In these were placed marble statues of the Tirthankars with a lighted lamp before that which stood in the central shrine. One of the priests attending the temple was busy receiving from the votaries flowers which were placed round the images, as also oil for the lamps that hung before the rails, and wheat and salt as a sacrifice. The priest had covered his mouth and nose with a piece of linen cloth so that the impurity of his breath should not profane the images.”

Shantidas Jhaveri (1580–1659) Indian jewellery and bullion trader during Mughal era

Description of the temple built by Shantidas Jhaveri. Mandelslo’s Travels In Western India (a.d.1638-9) https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.531053 p. 23-25

Life, Men, Flowers, Lying

“A black-belt bullshitter”

Jani Allan (1952) South African columnist and broadcaster

Description of Pik Botha in Sunday Times column Face to Face.
Sunday Times

“The sky was dark, the night was black, obscurity reigned, the gleam of the wolves eyes was the only light that came to sight, the howling of the jackal was the only sound to be heard, conspiracies were in the making while slanderers and the malicious were busily chattering”

Ali Shariati (1933–1977) Iranian academic and activist

Quote in: Ali Rahnema An Islamic Utopian: A Political Biography of Ali Shariati. (2000), p. 258
Rahnema commented that "Shariati did not believe he had any chance of returning to Ershad and evaluated his situation in a poetical and macabre fashion".

Light, Night

“The fears of recession in the aftermath of Black Monday have turned to fears of the economy racing ahead too fast, with inflation edging up and a substantial current account deficit…people understandably feel more confident about their future than they've done for decades, but as a result they have been borrowing more and saving less…coming on top of a massive income investment boom, it's all been just a bit too much of a good thing.”

Nigel Lawson (1932) British Conservative politician and journalist

Speech to the Conservative Party Conference (13 October, 1988).

People, Fear, Feeling, Confidence

“It is, I believe, impossible to justify the sacrifice of even a portion of our historic individual freedom for a purpose such as [giving blacks, Latinos and Jews the right to be served in local motels, hotels and restaurants].”

William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005) Chief Justice of the United States

Letter to the Phoenix, Arizona city council, as cited in The Rehnquist Court : Bill Rehnquist Was Once Considered An Extremist. Now His Views Almost Always Become The Law Of The Land. http://articles.latimes.com/1991-09-29/magazine/tm-4832_1_rehnquist-court/4, by David G. Savage, in the LA Times, September 29 1991

Freedom

“Well, and the 'X-rays' [X-Ray, 1991, black and white photograph]... I was just interested in seeing what it looks like inside my head – and the idea that they could just examine the inside of my head like a globe. And then I photographed the facades in New York. [at the end of the 19-nineties]... I did the books at the end of the nineties, and I did the facades shortly after that.”

Isa Genzken (1948) German sculptor

2001 - 2010, Isa Genzken in conversation with Wolfgang Tillmans' (2003)

Books, Idea

“"Maybe this isn't coffee at all," I said. "Maybe it's just water after they boiled your filthy shoes in it." I looked up to her black blazing eyes. "Maybe you don't know any better. Maybe you're just naturally careless. But if I were a girl I wouldn't be seen in a Main Street alley with those shoes."”

John Fante book Ask the Dust

Ask the Dust (1939)

Shoe, Girl, Coffee, Nature

“Just like when Governor Perry came in, there would be a big splash, you know, with the establishment media. So he'll get a lot of attention, suck up a lot of the oxygen for a while, and at the same time, you still see 'black walnut' moving up the charts.”

Herman Cain (1945) American writer, businessman and activist

Time

“Affirmative action has to be combined with a broader program of social reform that would emphasize social rights: the right to employment, the right to education, the right to good health. Over the years, black leaders have been slow to recognize the need for a very, very progressive agenda. Anytime someone has talked about putting America back to work, blacks should have said yes, but they didn't. They were so preoccupied with affirmative action that they didn't provide the kind of leadership that would help some of the other progressive folks. Only now are black leaders beginning to realize the impact of economic issues.”

William Julius Wilson (1935) American sociologist

Interview with Mother Jones.

Health, Education, Help

“Smooth lies the road to Pluto's gloomy shade,
And hell's black gates for ever stand displayed,
But 'tis a long unconquerable pain,
To climb to these ethereal realms again.”

Christopher Pitt (1699–1748) English poet

Book VI, line 182
The Æneid of Virgil (1740)

Pain, Hell

“You know it's gone to hell, when the best rapper out there is a white guy and the best golfer is a black guy.”

Charles Barkley (1963) American basketball player

Interview in the New York Post in October 2000. Notes: Although Barkley popularised the phrase, it was likely first used several months earlier http://www.snopes.com/quotes/chrisrock.asp by Chris Rock.

Guy, Hell

“A cottonwood leaf beetle scuttled out of the loosened earth, frantic legs working the sandy dirt, orange and black body desperate for a new hiding place. The sunset was fading, and a bloated ocher moon pushed its way into the dark blue sky.”

Andrea Lewis (writer) Microsoft employee

“Family Cucurbita” The MacGuffin, Vol. XXVII No. 1 (Fall, 2010)
2010-

Way

“When the decision was finally made to accept blacks as full citizens, the founders' principles provided the theoretical foundation. Lincoln's revival of the declaration in the 1850s had prepared the way. In principle, people of all races can become citizens of a nation based on the idea that "all men are created equal."”

Thomas G. West (1945) American academic

Source: 2000s, Vindicating the Founders (2001), p. 28

Men, People, Way, Idea

“If the cop honestly felt that this was a young black man (as politically incorrect as it sounds, this is the most violent category of people in the USA) aiming a gun at him, the cop can hardly be blamed for shooting first.”

Piero Scaruffi (1955) Italian writer

Of heroes and thugs: African-American males and white cops http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/usa14.html#usa1214

People

“Nowhere is patriarchy's iron fist as naked as in the oppression of animals, which serves as the model and training ground for all other forms of oppression. Its three basic strategies — the club, the yoke, and the leash — operate similarly in the oppression of women and minorities. The club strategy is to kill animals for gain, sadistic pleasure, and the "affirmation of manhood." It is domination through brute force. The yoke strategy is to domesticate animals to carry burdens and pull vehicles; supply eggs, wool, and milk; and provide flesh and skins. It is domination through enslavement. The leash strategy is to tame animals to provide the psychic benefits of direct rule of master over pet. It is domination through deceit. … It is a surprisingly close progression from hunting animals to hunting and torturing people — catching and lynching blacks or "smoking out" Jews during the Holocaust.”

Aviva Cantor (1940) Author, journalist and lecturer

"The Club, the Yoke, and the Leash: What We Can Learn From the Way a Culture Treats Animals," in Ms. magazine, Vol. 12 https://books.google.it/books?id=Z2gpAAAAYAAJ, No. 2 (August 1983).

Women, People, Pleasure, Animals

“When he saw Tiny, he was delighted, and thought her the prettiest little maiden he had ever seen. He took the gold crown from his head, and placed it on hers, and asked her name, and if she would be his wife, and queen over all the flowers. This certainly was a very different sort of husband to the son of a toad, or the mole, with my black velvet and fur; so she said, "Yes," to the handsome prince. Then all the flowers opened, and out of each came a little lady or a tiny lord, all so pretty it was quite a pleasure to look at them. Each of them brought Tiny a present; but the best gift was a pair of beautiful wings, which had belonged to a large white fly and they fastened them to Tiny's shoulders, so that she might fly from flower to flower.”

Hans Christian Andersen Thumbelina

Thumbelina
Fairy Tales (1835)

Pleasure, Beauty, Flowers, Flying

“The most interesting character here is an animal, a sturdy-looking white and black bulldog, who appears throughout the movie, angel style, to speak the truth -- silently. In this load of mind-bendy bushwa, he's the only thing worth watching, or listening to.”

Stephanie Zacharek (1963) American film critic

Review http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/02/23/number_23/index.html of The Number 23 (2007)

Truth, Angels, Appearance, Animals

“The sky was aquamarine, stroked with clouds. She could smell the grass and taste the scent of small, crushed flowers. She looked back up over her forehead at the gray-black wall towering behind her, and wondered if the castle had ever been attacked on days like this. Did the sky seem so limitless, the waters of the straits so fresh and clean, the flowers so bright and fragrant, when men fought and screamed, hacked and staggered and fell and watched their blood mat the grass?
Mists and dusk, rain and lowering cloud seemed the better background; clothes to cover the shame of battle.”

Iain Banks Culture series

Source: Culture series, Use of Weapons (1990), Chapter Two (pp. 50-51).

Men, Flowers, Grass, Water

“There is nothing, nothing on Urras that we Anarresti need! We left with empty hands, a hundred and seventy years ago, and we were right. We took nothing. Because there is nothing here but States and their weapons, the rich and their lies, and the poor and their misery. There is no way to act rightly, with a clear heart, on Urras. There is nothing you can do that profit does not enter into, and fear of loss, and the wish for power. You cannot say good morning without knowing which of you is ‘superior’ to the other, or trying to prove it. You cannot act like a brother to other people, you must manipulate them, or command them, or obey them, or trick them. You cannot touch another person, yet they will not leave you alone. There is no freedom. It is a box—Urras is a box, a package, with all the beautiful wrapping of blue sky and meadows and forests and great cities. And you open the box, and what is inside it? A black cellar full of dust, and a dead man. A man whose hand was shot off because he held it out to others. I have been in Hell at last. Desar was right; it is Urras; Hell is Urras.”

Ursula K. Le Guin Hainish Cycle

Source: Hainish Cycle, (1974), Chapter 11 (pp. 346-347)

People, Fear, Beauty, Way

“These collages were static symmetrical constructions, portico's with pathetic vegetation, the gateway to the realm of dreams. They were done with colored paper in black, orange or blue dye plates. Although cubist painting interested me very much, not a trace of their influence was to be found in my collages.”

Hans Arp (1886–1966) Alsatian, sculptor, painter, poet and abstract artist

Source: 1960s, Jours effeuillés: Poèmes, essaies, souvenirs (1966), p. 420 - quote on his early collages, Hans Arp made ca. 1914.

Dreams, Color, Painting

“A black man would never dream of talking to the police high. That's a waste of weed. I'm serious. I mean, I'd be scared to talk to the police when I'm sleepy.”

Dave Chappelle (1973) American comedian

Comedy specials, Dave Chappelle: Killin' Them Softly (2000)

Dreams

“[F]or all the economic destruction levied on the South by the war, the people who ran the economic show before the war were still running it afterwards. Former slaveholders were thus free to use cotton profits to maintain a version of the plantation system and force the freedpeople into peonage; peonage, in turn, gave white Democrats the power to control black voting…”

Allen C. Guelzo (1953) American historian

2010s, Interview with Sara Gabbard (2018)

War, People

“In effect, the Klan was a military force serving the interests of the Democratic party, the planter class, and all those who desired the restoration of white supremacy. It aimed to destroy the Republican party’s infrastructure, undermine the Reconstruction state, reestablish control of the black labor force, and restore racial subordination in every aspect of Southern life.”

Eric Foner (1943) American historian

Source: 1990s, A Short History of Reconstruction (1990), p. 184

Life

“Invention flags, his brain goes muddy,
And black despair succeeds brown study.”

William Congreve (1670–1729) British writer

"An Impossible Thing", line 105 (1720)

Study, Despair

“Beatles' "aryan" music removed any trace of black music from rock and roll: it replaced syncopated african rhythm with linear western melody, and lusty negro attitudes with cute white-kid smiles.”

Piero Scaruffi (1955) Italian writer

Beatles The History of Rock Music http://www.scaruffi.com/vol1/beatles.html

Smile, Music

“What debt [of slavery]? I never enslaved anyone in my life. Look, if you really look at history, the Portuguese didn’t even step foot in Africa. The blacks themselves turned over the slaves.”

Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

In an interview on TV Cultura https://www.poder360.com.br/eleicoes/bolsonaro-sobre-ditadura-ferida-que-precisa-ser-cicatrizada-esquece/ on 30 July 2018. Bolsonaro Says Black Brazilians Aren’t Owed Anything Over Slavery https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-31/brazil-candidate-bolsonaro-minimizes-slavery-praises-trump. Bloomberg (31 July 2018).

Life, History

“When you tread water, you lift yourself up by pushing water down. Likewise, in any social hierarchy, people unsure of their own position will try to emphasize it by maltreating those they think rank below. I've read that this is why poor whites in the United States are the group most hostile to blacks.”

Paul Graham (1964) English programmer, venture capitalist, and essayist

"Why Nerds are Unpopular," February 2003

Hostility, People, Thinking, Water

“In America, black is beautiful. To be black is to be more righteous, nobler; carry the heaviest historic baggage — heavier than the Holocaust — and be encouraged to perpetually and publicly pick at those suppurating sores. To be black is to have an unwritten, implicit social contract with wider, whiter society. To be black it to be born with an IOY (I Own You); it is to be owed apologies, obsequiousness, education, and auto-exculpation for any wrongdoing.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Rachel Dolezal: A Racially Abused Girl—Really," http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/07/19/rachel-dolezal-a-racially-abused-girl-really/ The Libertarian Alliance, July 19, 2015. 2010s, 2015

Education, Beauty

“Today, there is no greater injustice than that suffered by the 4,000 babies, 1,400 of them black, who die on any given day at the hands of abortionists. Friday, we will stand witness in front of the White House and testify to President Obama and that while he is living his dreams, those babies will be dying horrible deaths because of the policies he supports. I see the pride on African American faces everywhere, pride in the tremendous breakthrough President Obama represents," added Dr. King. "But I also can close my eyes and see the millions upon millions of young black, white, red, and yellow faces who never had the chance to live, overcome, or witness history.”

Alveda King (1951) American, civil rights activist, Christian minister, conservative, pro-life activist, and author

Dr. Alveda King featured speaker at prolife rally http://www.speroforum.com/a/17811/Dr-Alveda-King-featured-speaker-at-prolife-rally#.WH0nsFMrLIU (January 22, 2009)

Death, Dreams, History, Support

“Frances Egan, the school nurse, left her nutrition charts long enough to tell me there was nothing that could have been done. "Evelyn had a rough time with her father," she said. "Once she came in beaten black and blue."
"What did you do for her?"
"I gave her a cup of tea."
"Tea? Why tea, for heaven's sake?"
"Why? Because I know all about it," she said, shaking with anger. "I know more than anyone here what goes on outside — poverty, disease, dope, degeneracy — yet I'm not supposed to give them even a band-aid. I used to plead, bang on my desk, talk myself hoarse arguing with kids, parents, welfare, administration, social agencies. Nobody really heard me. Now I give them tea. At least, that's something."
"But you're a nurse," I said helplessly.
She showed me the Directive from the Board posted on her wall: THE SCHOOL NURSE MAY NOT TOUCH WOUNDS, GIVE MEDICATION, REMOVE FOREIGN PARTICLES FROM THE EYE…
Are we, none of us, then, allowed to touch wounds? What is the teacher's responsibility? And if it begins at all, where does it end?”

Bel Kaufmanová book Up the Down Staircase

Part V, ch. 26 (Sylvia Barrett)
Up the Down Staircase (1965)

Disease, School, Parent, Teachers

“Already handbills were in circulation; some presenting, in large print, the alternative of justice on the conspirators or ruin to the Republic; others in equally large print urging the observance of the law and the granting of the Appeal. Round these jutting islets of black capitals there were lakes of smaller characters setting forth arguments less necessary to be read: for it was an opinion entertained at that time (in the first flush of triumph at the discovery of printing), that there was no argument more widely convincing than question-begging phrases in large type.”

George Eliot book Romola

Volume III, Chapter XIII
Romola (1863)

Justice, Law, Question, Time

“I no more wrote than read that book which is
The self I am, half hidden as it is
From one and all who see within a kiss
The lounging formless blackness of an abyss. How could I think the brief years were enough
To prove the reality of endless love?”

Delmore Schwartz (1913–1966) American poet

"I am a Book I neither Wrote nor Read"
Selected Poems: Summer Knowledge (1959)

Love, Books, Kiss, Thinking

“Winter wields only the spades, Summer brandishes
Hot, black clubs, Spring shower hearts about and Autumn shows
A fall of diamonds in our climate of extremes”

John Hollander (1929–2013) American poet

Extract from 'Powers of Thirteen'(1983)
Poetry Quotes

Spring, Autumn, Winter, Heart

“1948 Black Mountain College N. C. Disciplined by Albers. Learned photography. Worked hard but poorly for Albers. Made contact with music and modern dance. Felt too isolated, Sue [Weil, they married soon, then] and I moved to NYC. Went to Art Students League. Vytlacil & Kantor. Best work made at home. Wht. Painting with no.'s best example. Summer 1950, Outer Island Conn. Married Sue Weil. Christoher (son) Born July 16, 1951 in NYC. First one man show Betty Parsons's”

Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) American artist

Source: 1980's, Off the Wall: Robert Rauschenberg and the Art world of Our Time, 1980, pp. 55-56 : Autobiographic notes

Art, Music, Home, Mountain

“It's fascinating that people, there's so many people now who will make judgments based on what you look like. I'm black, so I'm supposed to think a certain way? I'm supposed to have certain opinions? I don't do that. You don't create a box and put people in and then make a lot of generalizations about them.”

Clarence Thomas (1948) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Interview with Steve Kroft https://web.archive.org/web/20140611214639/http://www.cbsnews.com/news/clarence-thomas-the-justice-nobody-knows/ (September 2007). 2000s

People, Way, Thinking, Box

“Everything had been new and strange : the lean and ragged foot-soldiers who marched alongside of us, toughened, stained and blasés after months of service; the turmoil of encampment in the dark, with the shrill yells of black drivers, and the hassle and crush of crowding wagons, the twinkle of hosts of camp-fires, and the hot glow of a distant veldt-fire; and, finally the ghostly ride of two miles to water the horses….”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

"The H.A.C. in South Africa", by Erskine Childers and Basil Williams, Smith & Elder, (London, 1903), p. 72.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918)

Water, Distant, Horse

“Sometimes I just want to tell a story regardless of whether it fits what the show is saying. I’ve been in a lot of writing rooms where somebody says an idea and everyone’s dying, like laughing so they’re delirious. It’s like a black hole in a good way, everything starts to fall into it, you know what I mean.
And then after a few minutes everybody calms down and somebody says yeah, we can’t do it that way, it doesn’t make any sense, because it hurts this thing and this. And then everyone gets a little—has a moment of silence for the idea and moves on, and something amazing was kept away from the public.”

Louis C.K. (1967) American comedian and actor

Time http://entertainment.time.com/2011/06/22/louis-ck-interview-part-1-fatherhood-and-fear/#ixzz2LfKg3gu2 (2011)

Way, Idea, Sense, Silence

“… of all the minorities in America, the blacks have undertaken assimilation as first-class citizens under the greatest number of handicaps. Many early political leaders of the United States, including Abraham Lincoln, were fearful the blacks might never achieve complete adjustment because of the slavery culture in which the first few generations were raised. Nevertheless, freedom and education brought a whole new horizon of hope to the blacks within three generations. Tens of thousands of them hurdled the culture gap, and soon the blacks in other countries saw their ethnic cousins in the United States enjoying a higher standard of living than blacks in any part of the world. In fact, by 1970 a black high school student in Alabama or Mississippi had a better opportunity to get a college education than a white student in England.”

W. Cleon Skousen (1913–2006) ex FBI agent, conservative United States author and faith-based political theorist

The 5,000 Year Leap (1981)

World, Education, Fear, School

“In order to comprehend Hitler’s reasoning, one must go back to evolution to understand why he did the things that he did, and thought the way he thought. Hitler slaughtered the Jews and hated the blacks because he was an evolutionist. He thought it was his duty to aid evolution in improving the human race. He taught and believed that each of the different races in the world were actually different species of man, and that it was the job of the superior species (Germany) to annihilate the inferior species.”

Kent Hovind (1953) American young Earth creationist

Dissertation for doctor of philosophy in christian education (May 25, 1991)

Hate, World, Way, Understanding

“Human experience has pronounced "black magic" a delusion. Its practice is criminal folly: criminal because its objective is evil, folly because the means employed are futile.”

Ernest Barnes (1874–1953) English mathematician and clergyman

Spiritualism and the Christian Faith (1918)

Evil

“There's no reason for Republicans to waste any time on black voters; there are no votes there under any conditions. Rand Paul went to Ferguson and Baltimore to talk racial healing: no one cared or even noticed.”

Crispin Sartwell (1958) American philosopher

White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)

Time

“The fact that black voters have voted over 90 percent Democratic for decades leaves them almost wholly without power. Democrats—paradigmatically, the Clintons—feint in their direction during general elections, trying to assure turnout and using them to bash Republicans as bigots and—in the usual fashion—as emblems of their own goodness.”

Crispin Sartwell (1958) American philosopher

White Liberals: We’re Not Racist (August 29, 2016)

Fashion

“Death in the wood,—
In the death-pale lips apart;
Death in a whiteness that curdled the blood,
Now black to the very heart:
The wonder by her was formed
Who stands supreme in power;
To show that life by the spirit comes
She gave us a soulless flower!”

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) American novelist, poet

Indian Pipe, Stanza 4; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 391.

Life, Death, Flowers, Heart

“See, Barack been, um, talking down to black people on this faith-based… I want to cut his nuts off. Barack, he's talking down to black people.”

Jesse Jackson (1941) African-American civil rights activist and politician

Jesse Jackson, thinking his mic was off, on Obama's faith-based initiative, while on Fox News Channel; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4h5Aq6wPFis

People, Faith

“Purpose of counter-intelligence action is to disrupt [Black Panther Party] and it is immaterial whether facts exist to substantiate the charge. If facts are present it aids in the success of the proposal but the Bureau feels … that disruption can be accomplished without facts to back it up.”

J. Edgar Hoover (1895–1972) American law enforcement officer and first director of the FBI

Memo (16 Sept. 1970).

Feeling, Intelligence, Success

“How beautiful life is! Music and dancing! The violins are sobbing. The first stopper of a bottle of champagne bangs. And now there's a mad singing and shouting. Everybody joins in and sings and shouts! Embracing, friendship, eternal friendship! How beautiful the women are! Dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha! … Hey, you grumblers, go to hell! Music and dancing. The violins are sobbing. Women dressed in black and red. But you are the prettiest, Hertha!”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

Wie schön ist das Leben! Musik und Tanz! Die Geigen schluchzen. Der erste Sektpfropfen knallt. Und nun ein tolles Singen und Schreien. Man singt und schreit mit. Umarmung, Freundschaft, ewige Freundschaft! Welch' schöne Frauen! In schwarz und rot! Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk! … Heda, ihr Miesmacher, der Teufel soll euch holen! Musik und Tanz. Die Geigen schluchzen. Frauen in schwarz und rot. Und doch bist Du die Schönste, Hertha Holk!
Michael: a German fate in diary notes (1926)

Life, Women, Friendship, Beauty

“Sheriff Bart [waking up a drunk Jim in jail]: Are we awake?
Jim "The Waco Kid": We don't know. Are we black?
Sheriff Bart: Yes we are.
Jim "The Waco Kid": Then we're awake, but we're very puzzled.”

Mel Brooks (1926) American director, writer, actor, and producer

Blazing Saddles

“[about an incident in a coffee shop]
I said, "Ma'm, I just want a cup of black coffee." She goes, "You want to try a biscotti? They're from Italy, and they're considered a delicacy." You ever eaten one of these things? It tastes like a burnt cookie. Where I'm from, that's considered a mistake.”

Bill Engvall (1957) American comedian and actor

Now That's Awesome (2000)

Coffee

“Every black guy who was in my cell said he respected nazis and no one else because they presume everyone is tribal and everyone is a racist. They know where they stand with the nazis. They're not going to stab them in the back. They will stab them while looking at them, which is preferable.”

Jim Goad (1961) Author, publisher

Shit Magnet: One Man's Miraculous Ability to Absorb the World's Guilt (Feral House, 2002)

Guy

“I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.”

Assata Shakur (1947) American activist who was a member of the Black Panther Party and Black Liberation Army

To My People (July 4, 1973)

People, Search, Decision, Sister

“I do not think I had ever seen a nastier-looking man…. Under the black hat, when I had first seen them, the eyes had been those of an unsuccessful rapist.”

Ernest Hemingway book A Moveable Feast

Source: A Moveable Feast (1964), Ch. 12

Thinking

“Whoever challenged the racial hierarchy was marked a potential victim of the mob. The endless roster of the dead came to include every sort of insurgent—from the owners of successful Black businesses and workers pressing for higher wages to those who refused to be called “boy” and the defiant women who resisted white men’s sexual abuses. Yet public opinion had been captured, and it was taken for granted that lynching was a just response to the barbarous sexual crimes against white womanhood.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Women, Race and Class (1983)

Women, Men, Boy, Business

“Never has outright racism been so exciting or so chic — both here in America and abroad! Kumbaya! In fact, a German paper called him “the black JFK”, which is an insult to the late President Kennedy, who -- again, leaving aside the blatant racism here — was nowhere near as far left as Obama.”

Rachel Marsden (1974) journalist

On the candidacy of African-American US presidential candidate Barack Obama Barack Obama Has Little In Common With Europe http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=27669

“Of the three primary colors, the three binary ones are formed. If you add to one of these the primary tone that is its opposite, it cancels it out. This means that you produce the required half-tone. Therefore, adding black is not adding a half-tone, it is soiling the tone whose true half-tone resides in this opposite me have just described. Hence the green shadows found in red. The heads of the two little peasants. The yellow one had purple shadows; the redder and more sanguine one had green ones.”

Paul Signac (1863–1935) French painter

Quoted by Maria Buszek, online - note 19 http://mariabuszek.com/mariabuszek/kcai/Expressionism/Readings/SignacDelaNeo.pdf The notebook where this sentence appears was only published, in facsimile, in 1913 by J. Guiffrey. Signac therefore must have consulted it at the Conde Museum, in Chantilly. This Moroccan travel document was bought at the Delacroix sale by the painter Dauzats for the Duc of Aumale. From Delacroix to Neo-Impressionism, 1899

Color

Quotes about blackness page 9

Quotes about blackness
page 9