Racism

I once heard that joy and happiness do different things to the body. Happiness, which works itself out in the sympathetic nervous system, makes you excitable and energetic. It’s important but fleeting, grounded in the immediacy of a moment or the whim of a feeling. Joy is more tranquil. It has to do with the parasympathetic nervous system, and it’s

We always hate what we fear.

I’ve learned that this world has no commitments to my body. No one will try to understand it more than I will. I learned the necessity not only of listening to your own body but also of fighting for it.

I remember once, when I was a kid, hearing Johnny Winter singing “Tired of Tryin’ ” with Muddy Waters on guitar, on the Nothin’ but the Blues album, and hearing him sing and liking what I heard and then looking at a picture of him on the album and double-taking, maybe triple-taking, and then wondering what it meant to be black (or white, or albino)

The racial status quo is comfortable for white people, and we will not move forward in race relations if we remain comfortable. The key to moving forward is what we do with our discomfort. We can use it as a door out—blame the messenger and disregard the message. Or we can use it as a door in by asking, Why does this unsettle me? What would it mean

Both the Negro and the Jew are helpless; the pressure of living is too immediate and incessant to allow time for understanding. I can conceive of no Negro native to this country who has not, by the age of puberty, been irreparably scarred by the conditions of his life. All over Harlem, Negro boys and girls are growing into stunted maturity, trying

Before the door shut behind him, he bellowed, “I don’t open doors for chinks!” My sister burst into tears. She couldn’t understand why he was so mean. “That’s never happened to me before,” she cried. I wanted to run back into the mall and kill him. I had failed to protect my younger sister and I was helpless in my murderous rage against a grown man

week 1 THE BASICS