" The guard smirked at me, and again I wondered at all the minutes and hours and days that I’d spent on meaningless encounters like this one. I wanted to say to the little white man, “Listen, brother, we’re not enemies. I just want to go up in an elevator like anybody else. You don’t need to worry about me. It’s the men that own this building that are making you poor and uneducated and angry.” But I didn’t say anything. He wouldn’t have heard me. I couldn’t free either one of us from our bonds of hatred. "

― Walter Mosley , Blonde Faith (Easy Rawlins #11)