Let America Be America Again
If America is to be salvific, it can only be so because underneath our skyscrapers lie the people who have tasted the red clay, the loamy soil. Lashed, hidden, running, captured. Crucified for gain, bloodying the soil. If their dreams can become “we” dreams, hope will spring. “Greatness” is such an egotistical and dangerous word. But in the land of
... See moreImani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
The People, Yes
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kram added
The American Negro cannot explain to the African what surely seems in himself to be a want of manliness, of racial pride, a maudlin ability to forgive. It is difficult to make clear that he is not seeking to forfeit his birthright as a black man, but that, on the contrary, it is precisely this birthright which he is struggling to recognize and make
... See moreJames Baldwin • Notes of a Native Son
Sam Furness added
Dreaming isn’t dead. It can’t be. We can do it anew. Me and you, both of us are required. I believe writing can be a moral instrument if it asks you to do more than read. Do you? How many times will you witness people being starved or worked to death, driven out of their homelands, the land blasted and lives destroyed, and be only quietly horrified
... See moreImani Perry • South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation
We will be known as a culture that feared death
and adored power, that tried to vanquish insecurity
for the few and cared little for the penury of the
many. We will be known as a culture that taught
and rewarded the amassing of things, that spoke
little if at all about the quality of life for
people (other people), for dogs, for rivers. All
the world, in
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