“When the people prefer indifference, society regresses down the savage curve.”
“The reason many white people quickly cast aside conversations about unequal treatment of people of color as compared to white people in our culture is simple: white people, for the most part, do not have to intentionally consider their interaction with police.”
“We see the disparities in jobs and education among race and gender lines. Either you believe these disparities exist because you believe that people of color and women are less intelligent, less hard working, and less talented than white men, or you believe that there are systemic issues keeping women and people of color from being hired into jobs, promoted, paid a fair wage, and accepted into college.”
“Across the United States, there are more than seventeen hundred monuments to the Confederacy, monuments to a breakaway republic whose constitution and leaders were unequivocal in declaring the purpose of their new nation. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth... With us, all of the white race, however high or low, rich or poor, are equal in the eye by nature, or by curse against Canaan, is fitted for that condition which he occupies in our system.”
“I definitely do not like the Law, said Simple, using the word with a capital letter to mean police and courts combined. Why? I asked. Because the Law beats my head. Also because the Law will give a white man One Year and give me Ten. But if it wasn t for the Law, I said, you would not have any protection. Protection? yelled Simple. The Law always protects a white man. But if I holler for the Law, the Law says, What do you want, Negro? Only most white polices do not say Negro. Oh, I see. You are talking about the police, not the Law in general. Yes, I am talking about the polices. You have a bad opinion of the Law, I said. The Law has a bad opinion of me, said Simple. The Law thinks all Negroes are in the criminal class. The Law ll stop me on the streets and shake me down—me, a workingman—as quick as they will any old weed-headed hustler or two-bit rounder. I do not like polices. You must be talking about the way-down-home-in-Dixie Law, I said, not up North. I am talking about the Law all over America, said Simple, North or South. Insofar as I am concerned, a police is no good. It was the Law that started the Harlem riots by shooting that soldier-boy. Take a cracker down South or an ofay up North—as soon as he puts on a badge he wants to try out his billy club on some Negro s head. I tell you police are no good! If they was, they wouldn t be polices.”
“I m not a racist and you probably aren t either. But, the book White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo says I am a racist and if I say I m not, that shows I most definitely am a racist; and, when I take offense to being called a racist that s further proof of my racism. It s crazy talk, but that s where we are today.”
“The premise of White Fragility is that not only am I racist, but all white people in America are, too. That s not just an evil idea, it s ironically a completely racist claim.”
“Humans are born inside a game, and not everyone starts at Zero. There is only one difference between Humans and Animals.”
“We have yet to engage in a proper funeral dirge for our tainted racial history and continue to deny the deep spiritual stronghold of a nation that sought to justify slavery.”
“When your heart is labeled, The world stays hypnotized in darkness. The moment you rip them to pieces, Tides of light awaken all synapses.”
“The story always starts in the same way when people ask me the simple, yet most difficult question to answer: “where are you from?” I often wonder why of all questions people start with this one that has become the hardest for me and countless other exiled people to answer. The question is especially hard when asked in crowded and fast-paced places, or during quick encounters which make a short answer inadequate and a long one potentially uncalled for…I thought to myself: why is it that the first thing people want to know about me is where I am from? If they only knew where I am from, they would perhaps know that where I am from—Iraq—happens to also be the deepest wound on the geography of my body and soul, and so they would tread gently on my wound by not asking that question in the first place. Is there something in my eyes, something written on my forehead, something in my looks, or some marks inscribed on my other body parts that immediately tell people that I am from a place that lost itself and lost me to exile on a cold, dark, and sad winter night? Why don’t these strangers just start with the more common and safer usual remarks about the weather being nice, dreadful, or whatever? Of all questions, “where are you from,” is the most delicate and complicated for people who have lost their home and all the things they loved.”
“Our true nationality is humankind, our only race is human”
“NOT COHEN A golden bird today I heard sitting upon a silver branch His little song was very long which made me miserable and I began to laugh The chorus: All the oceans of tears For the words were never spoken Who of us can hear the silence in a noisy way with action never taken The world spins backward every day in a melody of Stars we follow so bright though they give no light merely refrains Bars of empty clichés like worn-out bandages reapplied promises of progress arranged upon a curve as long as life bleeds The world spins backward every day The sun shines hot and cold on the lowly becoming lower whilst lyrics of Diversity transition to Inclusivity for those who speak and think like me and rearranged is taken for change whilst cords of Liberation beat the oppressed into oppressors How intimately everyone knows the rhythm of hypocrisy as we eagerly divide we multiply absolutes Everybody knows the measure of hatred still the world spins backward every day on an axis of limitless achievements countless pursuits Around all the points of time-honored arrogance Around blindly fooled adolescence the world spins backward every day for Everybody knows the good guys lost Everybody knows the fight was fixed That s how it goes Everybody knows the Golden Bird sitting upon a silver branch Our little song is very long and we all begin to laugh.”
“You know why you see color, it s because you are distant. Get close to the person and all colors would disappear.”
“Others look different to us, because we are distant, the moment we get close to them, we d discover that the differences are either inconsequential or an illusion altogether.”
“Incidentally, by what awful ironic betrayal of our language do we find ourselves accusing bigots and tribalists of the sin of ‘discrimination’? They are the ones who judge severely by category, and yet can’t tell anyone apart. ‘Discrimination’ is only one of the moral and intellectual exercises that they are quite unable to perform.”
“I do not want to centre white feminists and our problems; I want to expand our capacity to deal with them without expecting others in our political communities (and women of colour especially) to do the work for us.”