Racism

Research has also shown that a major reason for this racial disparity can be attributed to the beliefs held by judges and others about the cause of the criminal behavior.17 For example, the criminal behavior of white juveniles is often seen as caused by external factors—the youth comes from a single-parent home, is having a hard time right now,

Perhaps you’ve known that person who devours beauty as if it belongs to them. It is a possessive wonder. It eats not to delight but to collect, trade, and boast. It consumes beauty to grow in ego, not in love. It climbs mountains to gain ownership, not to gain freedom.

“The American people are infected with racism—that is the peril,” King concluded. “Paradoxically, they are also infected with democratic ideals—that is the hope.”

black people have often been figured as essentially feeling bodies and bodies that in turn hail more feelings to life:

Fear becomes anxiety when it makes its home in you. Its chief attachment is not memory or villain or situation or future; its chief attachment and subject is you. This strange and imprecise fear can torment the body and enshroud all other fear experiences.

why on earth would we believe that a colonizing impulse would magically lead to universal prosperity this time around?

creator of the Smithsonian Museum’s “Programs in Black Culture,” and one of the leading authorities on Black American music culture,

Explicitly drawing on black traditions of family, he imagined a partnership, extended kin networks, friendships, and gay social worlds as constituting something more vital.

The teacher looked at her, looked away, and instead called on a White hand as soon as it was raised. As the Black girl’s arm came down, I could see her head going down. As I saw her head going down, I could see her spirits going down. I turned and looked up at the teacher, who, of course, was not looking at me. She was too busy engaging a favored