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161 " told Reginald what I had learned: that in order to get something you had to look as though you already had something. "
― Malcolm X , The Autobiography of Malcolm X
162 " I am not educated, nor am I an expert in any particular field but I am sincere, and my sincerity is my credentials "
163 " It is like a two-edged sword. It cuts into you. It causes you great pain, but if you can take the truth, it will cure you and save you from what otherwise be certain death. "
164 " وأنهت هيلدا حكايتها وذهبت فتركتني في ذهول شديد. فيما بعد عرفت أن هذه الحكاية وأمثالها تثير غضب المسلمين في الشرق وقد قلت لهم عندما زرت مكة إن الخطأ خطأهم لأنهم لا يفعلون كل ما يجب للتعريف بالإسلام الحقيقي في الغرب فيتركون الباب مفتوحاً إمام المشعوذين والمضللين. "
165 " White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting ‘hallelujah’! Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man’s back—and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man’s supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it’s still going to leave a scar! "
166 " I can give you a very good tip if you want to keep burglars out of your house. A light on for the burglar to see is the very best single means of protection. One of the ideal things is to leave a bathroom light on all night. The bathroom is one place where somebody could be, for any length of time, at any time of the night, and he would be likely to hear the slightest strange sound. The burglar, knowing this, won't try to enter. 'It's also the cheapest possible protection. The kilowatts are a lot cheaper than your valuables. "
167 " This was my first really big step toward self-degradation: when I endured all of that pain, literally burning my flesh to have it look like a white man’s hair. I had joined that multitude of Negro men and women in America who are brainwashed into believing that the black people are “inferior”—and white people “superior”—that they will even violate and mutilate their God-created bodies to try to look “pretty” by white standards. Look around "
168 " The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities—he is only reacting to four hundred years of the conscious racism of the American whites. But as racism leads America up the suicide path, I do believe, from the experiences that I have had with them, that the whites of the younger generation, in the colleges and universities, will see the handwriting on the wall and many of them will turn to the spiritual path of truth—the only way left to America to ward off the disaster that racism inevitably must lead to. "
169 " The Christian religion is incompatible with the Negro’s aspirations for dignity and equality in America,” the student had written. “It has hindered where it might have helped; it has been evasive when it was morally bound to be forthright; it has separated believers on the basis of color, although it has declared its mission to be a universal brotherhood under Jesus Christ. Christian love is the white man’s love for himself and for his race. For the man who is not white, "
170 " One morning, though, I came in and found signs that my room had been entered. I knew it had been detectives. I'd heard too many times how if they couldn't find any evidence, they would plant some, where you would never find it, then they'd come back in and "find" it. "
171 " And you’ll see black women wearing these green and pink and purple and red and platinum-blonde wigs. They’re all more ridiculous than a slapstick comedy. It makes you wonder if the Negro has completely lost his sense of identity, lost touch with himself. "
172 " going through the hardest thing, also the greatest thing, for any human being to do; to accept that which is already within you, and around you. "
173 " I have also read recently about groups of young white couples who get together, the husbands throw their house keys into a hat, then, blindfolded, the husbands draw out a key and spend the night with the wife that the house key matches. "
174 " Mine was the same psychology that makes Negroes even today, though it bothers them down inside, keep letting the white man tell them how much “progress” they are making. They’ve heard it so much they’ve almost gotten brainwashed into believing it—or at least accepting it. "
175 " Since most New Yorkers had never heard of Lansing, I would name Detroit. Gradually, I began to be called “Detroit Red”—and it stuck. "
176 " Before that bomb was dropped—right over here in the United States, what about the one hundred thousand loyal naturalized and native-born Japanese-American citizens who were herded into camps, behind barbed wire? But how many German-born naturalized Americans were herded behind barbed wire? They were white! "
177 " The well-meaning white people, I said, had to combat, actively and directly, the racism in other white people. And "
178 " Deep down, I actually believed that after living as fully as humanly possible, one should then die violently. "
179 " circumambulation "
180 " only when mankind would submit to the One God who created all—only then would mankind even approach the “peace” of which so much talk could be heard…but toward which so little action was seen. I "