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21 " a silver hilt joined to smoke that moves like black oil before dripping away. "
― P. Djèlí Clark , Ring Shout
22 " That fluffy white soaked in slave sweat and blood what made this city. "
23 " There’s a hornet’s nest in my head I can’t get quiet—as if a piece of Butcher Clyde’s awful singing wormed its way inside. Even worse is the guilt gnawing my insides. Whispering that I stirred all this up. That Sadie’s death is my fault. Looking to the night sky, I let out that scream I been holding in and start shouting. "
24 " White folk earn something from that hate. Might not be wages. But knowing we on the bottom and they set above us—just as good, maybe better. "
25 " They Say God is good all the time. Seem he also likes irony. "
26 " Such pain.” Dr. Bisset is knelt down beside me. “Sadness for what you lost. Shame at what you could not do. And anger—so much anger.” His empty eyes read me, boring into my deepest crevices. “You used that anger, fled from family and friends, then went seeking your vengeance, to etch your own story in blood. "
27 " A bit of rage behind the eyes that can drive you to commit all sorts of beautiful violence. But for us, those feelings are a power of their own. We feed on it. Treasure it as life. "
28 " They ain’t the same thing. Never was. These monsters want to pervert that. Turn it to their own ends. Because that’s what they do. Twist you all up so that you forget yourself. Make you into something like them. "
29 " Who says all the fantasies with sword-wielding heroes and heroines have to be in Middle Earth, Westeros, or even our dreams of Africa past—“copper sun or scarlet sea?”Maybe they can happen right here, too. "
30 " Socialism going to solve white folk? "
31 " That’s what happens to a Ku Klux when its killed. Body just crumbles away, as if it don’t belong here—which I assure you it does not. In about twenty minutes won’t be no blood or bones or nothing—just dust. Make it feel like you fighting shadows. "
32 " Thomas Dixon. Dixon’s father was a South Carolina slaveowner in the Confederacy. And a sorcerer. Way I hear it, a heap of the big ups in the Confederacy was into sorcery. Dark stuff too. Jeff Davis, Bobby Lee, Stonewall Jackson—all in league with worse than the devil. "
33 " Heard one time a white man pulled a pistol and shot up the screen—saying he trying to “rescue the fair damsel from that damned Negro brute. "
34 " I remember the songs that come with all those visions. Songs full of hurt. Songs of sadness and tears. Songs pulsing with pain. A righteous anger and cry for justice.But not hate.They ain’t the same thing. Never was. "
35 " She very particular about us not killing them who still human. Say every sinner got a chance to get right. I suppose. Way I see it, one less Klan, one less chance of a Ku Klux. But I bides by her rules and shake my head. "
36 " Your poor white workers be the first ones at a lynching. "
37 " My people make money and we are ‘greedy capitalists.’ We call for an equitable society, and we are ‘dirty Bolsheviks.’ Those who wish to hate Jews will always find justification. "
38 " That movie, what you call a spell, I believe, works to induce hate on a mass scale,” Molly says. “Like how a lynching riles individuals into a mob.” Sadie scoffs. “Then why come it only riles white folk? "
39 " When not writing speculative fiction, P. Djèlí Clark works as an academic historian whose research spans comparative slavery and emancipation in the Atlantic World, or sign up for email updates here "
40 " Won’t argue that,” Lester says. “But we could do great things in Africa. Restore the colored race to our greatness, like in times past. "