“If you’re not making mistakes, you’re not learning.”

I realized I couldn’t be made more afraid than I was, than I had been my entire life.

“And you’re colored,” she said. Norman nodded. “Who can tell?” “Nobody,” Norman said. “Then why do you stay colored?” “Because of my mother. Because of my wife. Because I don’t want to be white. I don’t want to be one of them.” Sammy looked at me. “That’s a pretty good answer.”

“I don’t like white folks,” he said. “And I is one.”

“Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.” “Perfect,” I said. “Why is that correct?” Lizzie raised her hand. “Because we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble.”

“Signifying.”

François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire

I am called Jim. I have yet to choose a name. In the religious preachings of my white captors I am a victim of the Curse of Ham. The white so-called masters cannot embrace their cruelty and greed, but must look to that lying Dominican friar for religious justification. But I will not let this condition define me. I will not let myself, my mind, dro

There might be some higher power, children, but it’s not their white God.