QUOTE : Slowly, the awareness came to me that no matter what happened, my struggles and efforts could not eradicate the weight and inalienable supremacy of two hundred years: the children of slaves could not converse or compete with the offspring of planters, the descendants of London barristers, the progeny of sprawling, upward-climbing white America. And slavery was still a reality, considering that none of my students grew up in homes where books flourished, where ideas fluttered, and theories dwelt comfortably in dinner-table discussions.