83
" White ain't nothing.'Mama's grip did not lessen. 'It is something, Cassie. White is something just like black is something. Everybody born on this Earth is something, and nobody, no matter what color is better than anybody else.''Then how come Mr. Simms don't know that.''Because he's one of those people who has to believe that white people are better than black people to make himself feel big.' I stared questionably at Mama, not really understanding.Mama squeezed my hadn't and explained further, 'You see, Cassie, many years ago, when our people were fist brought from Africa in chains to work as slaves in this country--''Like Big Ma's Papa and Mama?'Mama nodded. " Yes, baby. Like Papa Luke and Mama Rachel. Except they were born right here is Mississippi, but their grandparents were born in Africa. And when they came, there was some white people who thought that is was wrong for any people to be slaves. So the people who needed slaves to work in their fields and the people who were making money bringing slaves from Africa preached that black people weren't really people like white people were, so slavery was all right. They also said that slavery was good for us because it thought us to be good Christians, like the white people.' She sighed deeply, her voice fading into a distant whisper, 'But they didn't teach us Christianity to save our souls, but to teach us obedience. They were afraid of slave revolts and they wanted us to learn the Bible's teachings about slaves being loyal to their masters. But even teaching Christianity didn't make us stop wanting to be free, and many slaves ran away.”...She was silent for a moment, then went on. 'Well, after a while, slavery became so profitable to people who had slaves and even to those who didn't that most people started to believe that black people weren't really people like everybody else. And when the Civil War was fought, and Mama Rachel and Papa Luke and all the other slaves were freed, people continued to think that way. Even the Northeners who fought the war didn't really see us equal to white people.'So, now, even though seventy years have passed since slavery, most white people still think of us as they did then, that we're not as good as they are. And people like Mr. Simms hold onto that belief harder than some other folks because they have little else to hold onto. For him to believe that he is better than we are makes him think that he's important, simply because he's white. "
85
" Fabre stood up. He placed his fingertips on d‘Anton’s temples. “Put your fingers here,” he said. “Feel the resonance. Put them here, and here.” He jabbed at d’Anton’s face: below the cheekbones, at the side of his jaw. “I’ll teach you like an actor,” he said. “This city is our stage.”
Camille said: “Book of Ezekiel. ‘This city is the cauldron, and we the flesh’ ...”
Fabre turned. “This stutter,” he said. “You don’t have to do it.” Camille put his hands over his eyes. “Leave me alone,” he said. “Even you.” Fabre’s face was incandescent. “Even you, I am going to teach.” He leapt forward, wrenched Camille upright in his chair. He took him by the shoulders and shook him. “You’re going to talk properly,” Fabre said. “Even if it kills one of us.” Camille put his hands protectively over his head. Fabre continued to perpetrate violence; d’Anton was too tired to intervene. "
― Hilary Mantel , A Place of Greater Safety
87
" Drelmere and sons, fine outfitters for the discerning magician!” he was shouting, his voice barely carrying over the hubbub. “Robes! Pointy hats! Beard grooming supplies! Yes, you sir, how can OH GOD HURRAAARRGLAB.”
I waited patiently for him to finish decorating the pavement with his stomach contents. “Sorry,” he said, bent double and gulping. Impressively, he immediately continued his sales pitch from that position. “Looking for a new robe?”
“Yes, this one’s starting to whiff a bit.”
“Yes, I . . . gathered that, sir.” He took a few deep, groaning breaths into a star-patterned hanky and seemed to gather himself.
“What sort of price range were you OH GOD YOUR EYES HURRAAARRGLAB.”
I tapped my now bile-sodden foot. “Shall I come back later? "
― Yahtzee Croshaw
90
" Laura never again came to the drugstore as long as I continued to work there.
The next time I saw her, she was a wreck of a woman, notorious around black Roxbury, in and out of jail.
She had finished high school, but by then she was already going the wrong way.
Defying her grandmother, she had started going out late and drinking liquor.
This led to dope, and that to selling herself to men. Learning to hate the men who bought her, she also became a Lesbian.
One of the shames I have carried for years is that I blame myself for all of this.
To have treated her as I did for a white woman made the blow doubly heavy.
The only excuse I can offer is that like so many of my black brothers today, I was just deaf, dumb, and blind. "
― Malcolm X , The Autobiography of Malcolm X
91
" The conversation soon turned upon fishing, and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm in arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of her wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme; and continually was she repeating, " Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for me, it cannot be for my sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me. "
99
" It is this kind of consciousness, exacerbated to an extreme, which has made inevitable the so called " death of God." Cartesian thought began with an attempt to reach God as object by starting from the thinking self. But when God becomes object, he sooner or later " dies," because God as object is ultimately unthinkable. God as object is not only a mere abstract concept, but one which contains so many internal contradictions that it becomes entirely nonnegotiable except when it is hardened into an idol that is maintained in existence by a sheer act of will. For a long time man continued to be capable of this willfulness: but now the effort has become exhausting and many Christians have realised it to be futile. Relaxing the effort, they have let go the " God-object" which their fathers and grandfathers still hoped to manipulate for their own ends. Their weariness has accounted for the element of resentment which made this a conscious " murder" of the deity. Liberated from the strain of willfully maintaining an object-God in existence, the Cartesian consciousness remains none the less imprisoned in itself. Hence the need to break out of itself and to meet " the other" in " encounter," " openness," " fellowship," " communion" . "