Black Like Me

but they have warned me that any time the police see a Negro idling, especially one they do not recognize, they will surely question him. This is worrisome, certainly an experience any Negro wants to avoid.

blacks “were rather weird creatures dedicated to nonviolence in the midst of a nation as violent as America is, has been, and will be.”

he as an individual can live in dignity, even though he as a Negro cannot.

If some spark does set the keg afire, it will be a senseless tragedy of ignorant against ignorant, injustice answering injustice - a holocaust that will drag down the innocent and right-thinking masses of human beings. Then we will all pay for not having cried for justice long ago.

Almost constantly and almost everywhere black men were being faced with this kind of duality. Whites were saying the right things, showing deep concern over injustices, expressing determination to resolve the problems of racism, but never really consulting with black people as equals.

“blackness was not a color but a lived experience.”

“It’s high time we stopped giving the communists credit for every decent, brave, considerate act” white men might show in regard to black men.

What fragmented individualism really meant was what happened to a black man who tried to make it in this society: in order to succeed, he had to become an imitation white man - dress white, talk white, think white, express the values of middle-class white culture (at least when he was in the presence of white men). Implied in all this was the hidin

every culture teaches us to honor its way while subtly denigrating other cultures.