Legacy All Blacks Quotes

It is not necessary that you believe that the officer who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.

A leather jacket,” Kami said as he shrugged into it. “Aren’t you trying a little too hard to play into certain bad boy clichés?” “Nah”, said Jared. “You’re thinking of black leather. Black leather’s for bad boys. It’s all in the color. You wouldn’t think I was a bad boy if I was wearing a pink leather jacket.” “That’s true,” Kami said. “What I would think of you, I do not know. So what does brown leather mean, then?” “I’m going for manly,” Jared said. “Maybe a little rugged.” “It’s bits of dead cow; don’t ask it to perform miracles.

What I mean is, all the terrible things that happen in fairy tales seem real. Or not real, but genuine. Life is unfair, and the bad guys keep winning and good people die. But I like how that's not always the end of it...Evil is real, but so is good. They always say fairy tales are simplistic, black and white, but I don't think so. I think they're complicated. That's what I love about them.

Van Houten, I’m a good person but a shitty writer. You’re a shitty person but a good writer. We’d make a good team. I don’t want to ask you any favors, but if you have time – and from what I saw, you have plenty – I was wondering if you could write a eulogy for Hazel. I’ve got notes and everything, but if you could just make it into a coherent whole or whatever? Or even just tell me what I should say differently. Here’s the thing about Hazel: Almost everyone is obsessed with leaving a mark upon the world. Bequeathing a legacy. Outlasting death. We all want to be remembered. I do, too. That’s what bothers me most, is being another unremembered casualty in the ancient and inglorious war against disease. I want to leave a mark. But Van Houten: The marks humans leave are too often scars. You build a hideous minimall or start a coup or try to become a rock star and you think, “They’ll remember me now,” but (a) they don’t remember you, and (b) all you leave behind are more scars. Your coup becomes a dictatorship. Your minimall becomes a lesion. (Okay, maybe I’m not such a shitty writer. But I can’t pull my ideas together, Van Houten. My thoughts are stars I can’t fathom into constellations.) We are like a bunch of dogs squirting on fire hydrants. We poison the groundwater with our toxic piss, marking everything MINE in a ridiculous attempt to survive our deaths. I can’t stop pissing on fire hydrants. I know it’s silly and useless – epically useless in my current state – but I am an animal like any other. Hazel is different. She walks lightly, old man. She walks lightly upon the earth. Hazel knows the truth: We’re as likely to hurt the universe as we are to help it, and we’re not likely to do either. People will say it’s sad that she leaves a lesser scar, that fewer remember her, that she was loved deeply but not widely. But it’s not sad, Van Houten. It’s triumphant. It’s heroic. Isn’t that the real heroism? Like the doctors say: First, do no harm. The real heroes anyway aren’t the people doing things; the real heroes are the people NOTICING things, paying attention. The guy who invented the smallpox vaccine didn’t actually invented anything. He just noticed that people with cowpox didn’t get smallpox. After my PET scan lit up, I snuck into the ICU and saw her while she was unconscious. I just walked in behind a nurse with a badge and I got to sit next to her for like ten minutes before I got caught. I really thought she was going to die, too. It was brutal: the incessant mechanized haranguing of intensive care. She had this dark cancer water dripping out of her chest. Eyes closed. Intubated. But her hand was still her hand, still warm and the nails painted this almost black dark blue and I just held her hand and tried to imagine the world without us and for about one second I was a good enough person to hope she died so she would never know that I was going, too. But then I wanted more time so we could fall in love. I got my wish, I suppose. I left my scar. A nurse guy came in and told me I had to leave, that visitors weren’t allowed, and I asked if she was doing okay, and the guy said, “She’s still taking on water.” A desert blessing, an ocean curse. What else? She is so beautiful. You don’t get tired of looking at her. You never worry if she is smarter than you: You know she is. She is funny without ever being mean. I love her. I am so lucky to love her, Van Houten. You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, old man, but you do have some say in who hurts you. I like my choices. I hope she likes hers.

The challenge is to always improve, to always get better, even when you are the best. Especially when you are the best. Henry

society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they will never see’.

This is getting us nowhere, he muttered after a moment. You’re absolutely right. So fuck off. Have a nice life, hope all your holier-than-thou keeps you warm during the day. ~ Paradise to Craeg

Vision without action is a dream. Action without vision is a nightmare.

He had a weakness, though. All of us do, and those of us who think they do not are not being honest.

Understanding America for the Non-American Black: Thoughts on the Special White Friend One great gift for the Zipped-Up Negro is The White Friend Who Gets It. Sadly, this is not as common as one would wish, but some are lucky to have that white friend who you don’t need to explain shit to. By all means, put this friend to work. Such friends not only get it, but also have great bullshit-detectors and so they totally understand that they can say stuff that you can’t. So there is, in much of America, a stealthy little notion lying in the hearts of many: that white people earned their place at jobs and schools while black people got in because they were black. But in fact, since the beginning of America, white people have been getting jobs because they were white. Many whites with the same qualifications but Negro skin would not have the jobs they have. But don’t ever say this publicly. Let your white friend say it. If you make the mistake of saying this, you will be accused of a curiosity called “playing the race card.” Nobody quite knows what this means. When my father was in school in my NAB (Non American Black) country, many American Blacks could not vote or go to good schools. The reason? Their skin color. Skin color alone was the problem. Today, many Americans say that skin color cannot be part of the solution. Otherwise it is referred to as a curiosity called “reverse racism.” Have your white friend point out how the American Black deal is kind of like you’ve been unjustly imprisoned for many years, then all of a sudden you’re set free, but you get no bus fare. And, by the way, you and the guy who imprisoned you are now automatically equal. If the “slavery was so long ago” thing comes up, have your white friend say that lots of white folks are still inheriting money that their families made a hundred years ago. So if that legacy lives, why not the legacy of slavery? And have your white friend say how funny it is, that American pollsters ask white and black people if racism is over. White people in general say it is over and black people in general say it is not. Funny indeed. More suggestions for what you should have your white friend say? Please post away. And here’s to all the white friends who get it.

she thought about what happily-ever-afters were about, and decided that true love didn’t mean effortless, and ever-after wasn’t about cruise control. You started with the attraction, and then you opened your heart and your soul—but all that, which was no small thing, just got you to first base. There were many, many other trips to take to deeper levels of greater acceptance and understanding. That was where you found the happy. And the ever-after was the work you were always willing to put in to stay close, to learn, and to grow as people together.

The fight is won or lost,’ says Muhammad Ali, ‘far away from witnesses – behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, well before I dance under the lights.

I do not believe guilt is inherited, but responsibility is, and there is nobody alive today whose existence has not been shaped by colonialist, racist forces. That is a legacy we all live with, and we should all deal with the consequences. If you have benefitted, then soaking yourself in remorse and guilt does not help anyone. What you can do, though, is ask constantly how you have felt those benefits. At whose expense were they gained?

You're not wearing that," he informed me. "Yes,I am." "No,you're not." "Yes,I am." "You'll look ridiculous." "I beg your pardon?" I said, affronted. "There's nothing wrong with your dress, or the way it fits you," he clarified with a roll of his eyes, as if he were explaining the obvious to a simpleton. "But it just won't do." "And why not?" "Your attire doesn't complement mine at all." This as entirely accurate and pleased me greatly. He wore black pants and an ivory shirt under a fitted gold-and-emerald-green doublet, an emsemble that made him appear annoyingly godlike, but which was very near horrendous next to sky blue. "Then our garb will complement our personalities," I retorted.

They had to swing by Jared’s locker so he could grab his jacket. “A leather jacket,” Kami said as he shrugged into it. “Aren’t you trying a little too hard to play into certain bad boy clichés?” “Nah,” said Jared. “You’re thinking of black leather. Black leather’s for bad boys. It’s all in the color. You wouldn’t think I was a bad boy if I was wearing a pink leather jacket.” “That’s true,” Kami said. “What I would think of you, I do not know. So what does brown leather mean, then?” “I’m going for manly,” Jared said. “Maybe a little rugged.” “It’s bits of dead cow; don’t ask it to perform miracles.

Monster stories are powerful. They explore prejudice, rejection, anger and every imaginable negative aspect of living in society. However, only half of society is reflected in the ranks of the people who create these monsters. Almost every single iconic monster in film is male and was designed by a man: the Wolfman, Frankenstein, Dracula, King Kong. The emotions and problems that all of them represent are also experienced by women, but women are more likely to see themselves as merely the victims of these monsters. Women rarely get to explore on-screen what it's like to be a giant pissed-off creature. Those emotions are written off. If a woman is angry or upset, she'll be considered hysterical and too emotional. One of the hardest things about misogyny in the film industry isn't facing it directly, it's having to tamp down your anger about it so that when you speak about the problem, you'll be taken seriously. Women don't get to stomp around like Godzilla. Someone will just ask if you're on your period.

I wept for my children and all black children who have been denied a knowledge of their heritage; I wept for all white children, who, through daily miseducation, are taught that the Negro is an irrelevant entity in American society; I wept for all the white parents and teachers who are forced to overlook the fact that the wealth of cultural and technological progress in America is a result of the commonwealth of inpouring contributions.

I, like every kid I knew, loved The Dukes of Hazzard. But I would have done well to think more about why two outlaws, driving a car named the General Lee, must necessarily be portrayed as “just some good ole boys, never meanin’ no harm”—a mantra for the Dreamers if there ever was one. But what one “means” is neither important nor relevant. It is not necessary that you believe that the officer who choked Eric Garner set out that day to destroy a body. All you need to understand is that the officer carries with him the power of the American state and the weight of an American legacy, and they necessitate that of the bodies destroyed every year, some wild and disproportionate number of them will be black.

we are every age we have ever been at each moment in our lives. We carry it all with us like luggage.

At what point are women forgiven for not being supernaturally resilient Amazons who spend all their waking hours fighting injustice?

Here’s what I know to be true. We can bury the past all we like. We can use a hundred thousand distractions, some of which are healthy, some of which are not, to keep it under the ground—but when something isn’t processed, it will absolutely, positively come back and bite us on the ass.

As he kissed her back, she thought about what happily-ever-afters were about, and decided that true love didn’t mean effortless, and ever-after wasn’t about cruise control. You started with the attraction, and then you opened your heart and your soul—but all that, which was no small thing, just got you to first base. There were many, many other trips to take to deeper levels of greater acceptance and understanding. That was where you found the happy. And the ever-after was the work you were always willing to put in to stay close, to learn, and to grow as people together.

I am praying for your eternal soul." "Don't bother." "Come on, don't you want to go to Heaven?" "I wouldn't know anyone up there. And don't get too prissy with that religious bullshit, true? I don't want to spend an eternity without you, so you need to come to Dhunhd with me." "Will they have milk duds there?" "yes, but they'll all be melted together. And we'll be surrounded by Yankees fans, televangelists, and no booze." "We'll think of some way to pass the time." "We always do.

Where's my sister?" "She's setting up the island we found tonight." Galen shakes his head. "You slithering eel. You might have told me what you were up to." Toraf laughs. "Oh sure. 'Hey, Galen, I need to borrow Emma for a few minutes so I can kiss her, okay?' Didn't see that going over very well." "You think your surprise attack went over better?" Toraf shrugs. "I'm satisfied." "I could have killed you today." "Yeah." "Don't ever do that again." "Wasn't planning on it. Thought it was real sweet of you to defend your sister's honor. Very brotherly." Toraf snickers. "Shut up." "I'm just saying." Galen runs a hand through his hair. "I only saw Emma. I forgot all about Rayna." "I know, idiot. That's why I let you hit me fifty-eight times. That's what I would do if someone kissed Rayna." "Fifty-nine times." "Don't get carried away, minnow. By the way, was Emma boiling mad or just a little heated? Should I keep my distance for a while?" Galen snorts. "She laughed so hard I thought she'd pass out. I'm the one in trouble." "Shocker. What'd you do?" "The usual." Hiding his feelings. Blurting out the wrong thing. Acting like a territorial bull shark. Toraf shakes his head. "She won't put up with that forever. She already thinks you only want to change her so she can become another of your royal subjects." "She said that?" Galen scowls. "I don't know what's worse. Letting her think that, or telling her the truth about why I'm helping her to change." "In my opinion, there's nothing to tell her unless she can actually change. And so far, she can't." "You don't think she's one of us?" Toraf shrugs. "Her skin wrinkles. It's kind of gross. Maybe she's some sort of superhuman. You know, like Batman." Galen laughs. "How do you know about Batman?" "I saw him on that black square in your living room. He can do all sorts of things other humans can't do. Maybe Emma is like him." "Batman isn't real. He's just a human acting like that so other humans will watch him." "Looked real to me." "They're good at making it look real. Some humans spend their whole lives making something that isn't real look like something that is." "Humans are creepier than I thought. Why pretend to be something you're not?" Galen nods. To take over a kingdom, maybe? "Actually, that reminds me. Grom needs you." Toraf groans. "Can it wait? Rayna's getting all cozy on our island right about now." "Seriously. I don't want to know." Toraf grins. "Right. Sorry. But you can see my point, right? I mean, if Emma were waiting for you-" "Emma wouldn't be waiting for me. I wouldn't have left." "Rayna made me. You've never hit me that hard before. She wants us to get along. Plus, there's something I need to tell you, but I didn't exactly get a change to." "What?" "Yesterday when we were practicing in front of your house, I sensed someone. Someone I don't know. I made Emma get out of the water while I went to investigate." "And she listened to you?" Toraf nods. "Turns out, you're the only one she disobeys.

Don't you want to find out who else you are—other than a receptionist?" She frowned. "There is honor in all works." "And maybe there is greatness waiting for you—if you only get back up on your feet and keep going.

Are Dex, Biana, Stina, and Wylie getting makeovers too?” Sophie asked, hoping Dex would show up with his hair dyed black and styled all shaggy—because Emo Dex would be hilarious—and that Stina would end up with giant hair-sprayed bangs.

We walked away from all that was warm and dear and stood frightened in cold rain where the guns fired, and in the end, we died in pain, the black stinking mud our shroud, embraced at last not by living arms, but by the bones of those who before us died …

Is it my turn yet?” Lassiter asked over the earpiece. “I was born ready for this.” “Of all the people who could be immortal,” V muttered, “why are you one of them?” “Because I’m awwwwwesome,” the fallen angel sang. “And I’m part of your team—” “No, you’re not—” “—living your dream!” Butch’s head started thumping even worse. “Shut up, Lass. I can’t do singing right now.” “It’s from Despicable Me,” the angel commented. Like he was being helpful. “Shut up,” V cut in. “Shut up.” Butch fought to keep his voice low. “We’ve got another four minutes in the gym. I’ll let you know when you can—” “I’m losing air over here, you know,” Lassiter bitched. “My inflatable is deflating.” V cursed. “That’s because it doesn’t want to be around you any more than we do.” “You keep this up and I’m going to start thinking my enmity is mutual.” “About fucking time.” Right, Butch didn’t get off on dragging soaking-wet, panicked idiots out of a pool—but, man, he was really frickin’ glad he wasn’t on the back side of the house with those two fighting. “Sit tight, Lass,” he said. “I’ll be in touch—and, V, for the love of God, will you turn off his fucking mic—” “Ow! Hey! What the fuck, V—

Today, home from Trinidad, I thank James Arthur Baldwin for his legacy of fire. A fine rain of words when we had no tongues. He set fire to our eyes. Made a single look, gesture endure. Made a people meaningful and moral. Responsible finally for all our sweet and terrible lives.

Perhaps telling realistically what slavery was like for slaves is the easy part. After all, slavery as an institution is dead. We have progressed beyond it, so we can acknowledge its evils. Slavery's twin legacies to the present are the social and economic inferiority it conferred upon blacks and the cultural racism it instilled in whites. Both continue to haunt our society. Therefore, treating slavery's enduring legacy is necessarily controversial. Unlike slavery, racism is not over yet.

It should be our acts that remain after us, the whakairo remind us, not our vainglory. Humility is seen as a vital part of a well-adjusted character.

To colour all empires black and to disavow all imperial legacies is to reject most of human culture.

True love, when it clicks, is the great eraser. All the conflict and work to get a relationship up off the ground just disappears when people hit smooth sailing.

Dr. Simms wanted us to be emotionally connected to our learning, to sit in the pain, the horror, the absurdity of America’s racist history, and to humanize those who dared stand against the system. Dr. Simms made us believe that we could follow that legacy of resistance, but one piece of his advice stood out to me more than all the others. “Ain’t no friends here.

What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments,' said the Greek statesman Pericles, 'but what is woven into the lives of others.' Your legacy is that which you teach.

DuBois pointed out that in order to fully abolish the oppressive conditions produced by slavery, new democratic institutions would have to be created. Because this did not occur; black people encountered new forms of slavery—from debt peonage and the convict lease system to segregated and second-class education. The prison system continues to carry out this terrible legacy. It has become a receptacle for all of those human beings who bear the inheritance of the failure to create abolition democracy in the aftermath of slavery. And this inheritance is not only born by black prisoners, but by poor Latino, Native American, Asians, and white prisoners. Moreover, its use as such a receptacle for people who are deemed the detritus of society is on the rise throughout the world.

If we wanted to be serious about evidence, we might compare where blacks stood a hundred years after the end of slavery with where they stood after 30 years of the liberal welfare state. In other words, we could compare hard evidence on “the legacy of slavery” with hard evidence on the legacy of liberals. Despite the grand myth that black economic progress began or accelerated with the passage of the civil rights laws and “war on poverty” programs of the 1960s, the cold fact is that the poverty rate among blacks fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent by 1960. This was before any of those programs began. Over the next 20 years, the poverty rate among blacks fell another 18 percentage points, compared to the 40-point drop in the previous 20 years. This was the continuation of a previous economic trend, at a slower rate of progress, not the economic grand deliverance proclaimed by liberals and self-serving black “leaders.” Nearly a hundred years of the supposed “legacy of slavery” found most black children [78%] being raised in two-parent families in 1960. But thirty years after the liberal welfare state found the great majority of black children being raised by a single parent [66%]. Public housing projects in the first half of the 20th century were clean, safe places, where people slept outside on hot summer nights, when they were too poor to afford air conditioning. That was before admissions standards for public housing projects were lowered or abandoned, in the euphoria of liberal non-judgmental notions. And it was before the toxic message of victimhood was spread by liberals. We all know what hell holes public housing has become in our times. The same toxic message produced similar social results among lower-income people in England, despite an absence of a “legacy of slavery” there. If we are to go by evidence of social retrogression, liberals have wreaked more havoc on blacks than the supposed “legacy of slavery” they talk about.

Ruhn had bared his fangs—which had descended all the way, their points like those of knives—and his already big body seemed to have swelled with aggression, becoming something huge and very deadly. As Saxton noted the transformation, his brain bifurcated, half of it remaining engaged with Minnie and the story…and the other part? All he could think of was what it would be like to have sex with that.

A whirlwind of panic swept through her as Derek stripped off his white shirt. She switched her gaze to the floor, but not before she had seen how large and formidable his body was, his torso heavily muscled, his chest covered with thick black hair. Silvery scars marked his skin, legacies of his life in the rookery. He was a man of vast experience. All that was new and frightening to her was commonplace to him.

Black people love their children with a kind of obsession. You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made. That is a philosophy of the disembodied, of a people who control nothing, who can protect nothing, who are made to fear not just the criminals among them but the police who lord over them with all the moral authority of a protection racket. It was only after you that I understood love, that I understood the grip of my mother's hand. She knew that the galaxy itself could kill me, that all of me could be shattered and all of her legacy spilled upon the curb like bum wine.

Dear . . . God,” she blurted as she recoiled. The hallway beyond was filled with the males of the house, the Brothers and other fighters and Manny sitting on the floor with their backs to the bare walls, their legs stretched out, propped up, crossed at the knees or crossed at the ankles. Apparently there had been quite a bit of drinking going on, empty bottles of vodka and whiskey littered around them, glasses in hands or on thighs. “This is not as pathetic as it looks,” her Butch pointed out. “Liar,” V muttered. “It so fucking is. I think I’m going to start knitting for reals.” As the females emerged with her, each one of them registered shock, disbelief, and then a wry amusement. “Is it me,” one of the males groused, “or did we just perform our own mass castration out here?” “I think that just about sums this shit up,” somebody agreed. “I’m wearing panties under my leathers from now on. Anyone joining me?” “Lassiter already does,” V said as he got to his feet and went to Jane. “Hey.” And then it was group-reunion time. While the other pairs found one another, Butch smiled as Marissa came over to him and put out her hand to help him off the floor. As they embraced, he kissed her on the side of the neck. “Are you out of love with me now?” he murmured. “’ Cuz I’m pussy-whipped?” She leaned back in his arms. “Why? Because you pined after me while I was watching a dirty movie with my girls that wasn’t all that dirty? I think it’s actually— and brace yourself— really pretty cute.” “I’m still all man.” As she rolled her body against him, she let out a mmmm as she felt his erection. “Yes, I can tell.

Still, this moment belongs to the two of them, Mom and this handsome stranger. He reaches the passenger side door and stares down at her with steely violet eyes-down at my mother who never cries, down at my mother who’s now bawling like a spanked child-his face contorted in a rainbow of so many emotions, some that I can’t even name. Then Grom the Triton king sinks to his knees in front of her, and a single tear spills down his face. “Nalia,” he whispers. And then my mother slaps him. It’s not the kind of slap you get for talking back. It’s not the kind of punch she dealt Galen and Toraf in our kitchen. It’s the kind of slap a woman gives a man when he’s hurt her deeply. And Grom accepts it with grace. “I looked for you,” she shouts, even though he’s inches from her. Slowly, as if in a show of peace, he takes the hand that slapped him and sandwiches it between his own. He seems to revel in the feel of her touch. His face is pure tenderness, his voice like a massage to the nerves. “And I looked for you.” “Your pulse was gone,” she insists. By now she chokes back sobs between words. She’s fighting for control. I’ve never seen my mother fight for control. “As was yours.” I realize Grom knows what not to say, what not to do to provoke her. He is the complete opposite of her, or maybe just a completion of her. Her eyes focus on his wrist, and tears slip down her face, leaving faint trails of mascara on her cheeks. He smiles and slowly pulls his hand away. I think he’s going to show her the bracelet he’s wearing, but instead he rips it off his wrist and holds it out for her inspection. From where I’m standing it looks like a single black ball tied to some sort of string. By my mom’s expression, this black ball has meaning. So much meaning that I think she’s forgotten to breathe. “My pearl,” she whispers. “I thought I’d lost it.” He encloses it in her hand. “This isn’t your pearl, love. That one was lost in the explosion with you. For almost an entire season, I scoured the oyster beds, looking for another one that would do. I don’t know why, but I thought maybe if I found another perfect pearl, I would somehow find you, too. When I found this though, it didn’t bring me the peace I’d hoped for. But I couldn’t bring myself to discard it. I’ve worn it on my wrist ever since.” This is all it takes for my mom to throw herself into his arms, bringing Rachel partially with her. Even so, it’s probably the most moving moment I’ve ever encountered in my eighteen years. Or at least it would be, if my mom weren’t clinging to a man who is not my dad.

The twins had always seemed both blessed and cursed; they'd inherited, from their mother, the legacy of an entire town, and from their father, a legacy hollowed by loss. Four Vignes boys, all dead by thirty. The eldest collapsed in a chain gang from heatstroke; the second gassed in a Belgian trench; the third stabbed in a bar fight; and the youngest, Leon Vignes, lynched twice, the first time at home while his twin girls watched through a crack in the closet door, hands clamped over each other's mouths until their palms were misted with spit.

Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself. Now, the heirs of those Virginia planters could never directly acknowledge this legacy or reckon with its power. And so that beauty that Malcolm pledged us to protect, black beauty, was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks I’d seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental “firsts”—first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor—always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow. I can’t remember where I read it, or when—only that I was already at Howard. “Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” Bellow quipped. Tolstoy was “white,” and so Tolstoy “mattered,” like everything else that was white “mattered.” And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?

RED HEAD Tight, inhibited, results-oriented, anxious, aggressive, over-compensating, desperate. BLUE HEAD Loose, expressive, in the moment, calm, clear, accurate, on task. It’s what tennis coach Nick Bollettieri calls the ‘centipede effect’. If a centipede had to think about moving all its legs in the right order, it would freeze, the task too complex and daunting. The same is true of humans. Red is what Suvorov called ‘the Dark’. It is that fixated negative content loop of self-judgement, rigidity, aggression, shut down and panic. Blue is what he called ‘the Light’ – a deep calmness in which you are on task, in the zone, on your game, in control and in flow. It applies to the military; it applies to sport; it applies to business. In the heat of battle, the difference between the inhibitions of the Red and the freedom of Blue is the manner in which we control our attention. It works like this: where we direct our mind is where our thoughts will take us; our thoughts create an emotion; the emotion defines our behaviour; our behaviour defines our performance. So, simply, if we can control our attention, and therefore our thoughts, we can manage our emotions and enhance our performance.

While it is totally impossible for Whites to know the pressure of being Black in a world in which Whites define normality—and based on that definition, Blacks are abnormal in all things and in all ways—it is critical that Whites see Black suffering and pain as reality before Whites can enter into their pain.

I just want to hit the groom. Once. Is that too much to ask?" Saxton popped his brows. "Is that a human tradition for this type of ceremony?" "Why, yes," the male said. "As a matter of fact it is--" Novo slapped her palm over his mouth. "No. it most certainly is not. And no matter how I might have felt about my sister in the past, I don't want her special night ruined, okay?" Peyton mumbled a little longer. And when she dropped her hand, he muttered, "First of all, I volunteered to do it after the pictures--and if it's realllllly important to you, I could catch him in the gut and not the face. I'm willing to work with you.

The most powerful country in the world has handed over all of it's affairs, the prosperity of an entire economy, the security of some 300 million citizens, the purity of it's water, the viability of it's air, the safety of it's food, the future of it's vast system of education, the soundness of it's national highways, airways, and railways, the apocalyptic potential of nuclear arsenal to a carnival barker who introduce the phrase "grab em by the pussy", into the national lexicon. It is as if the white tribe united in demonstration to say "if a black man can be president than any white man, no matter how fallen, can be president", and in that perverse way, the democratic dreams of Jefferson and Jackson were fulfilled. The American Tragedy now being wrought, is larger than most imaged and will not end with Trump. In recent times, whiteness as an overt political tactic has been restrained by a kind of cordiality held that it's overt invocation would scare off moderate whites. This has proved to be only half-true at best. Trump's legacy will be exposing the patina of decency for what it is and revealing just how much a demagague can get away with. It does not take much to imagine another politician, wiser in the ways of Washington, schooled in the methodology of governance, now liberated from the pretense of anti-racist civility, doing a much more effective job than Trump.

Resolution of the conflict between black and white women cannot begin until all women acknowledge that a feminist movement, which is both racist and classist, is a mere sham, a cover up for women’s continued bondage to materialistic, patriarchal principles, and passive acceptance of the status quo. The sisterhood that is necessary for the making of feminist revolution can be achieved only when all women disengage themselves from the hostility, jealousy, and competition with one another that has kept us vulnerable, weak, and unable to envision new realities. That sisterhood cannot be forged by the mere saying of words. It is the outcome of continued growth and change. It is a goal to be reached, a process of becoming. The process begins with action. With the individual woman’s refusal to accept any set of myths, stereotypes, and false assumptions that deny the shared commonness of her human experience. That deny her capacity to experience the unity of all life. That deny her capacity to bridge gaps created by racism, sexism or classism. That deny her ability to change. The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist, and sexist in varying degrees. And that labeling ourselves feminists, does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.

We usually bring her helmet with us, but we left it back in the hotel room this time." I gasp. I also try to decide what kind of flowers I'll bring to her funeral after I strangle the life from her body. I should have stayed in Jersey, like Mom said. Shouldn't have come here with Chloe and her parents. What business do I have in Florida? We live on the Jersey Shore. If you've seen one beach, you've seen them all, right? But noooooooo. I had to come and spend the last of my summer with Chloe, because this would be our last summer together before college, blah-blah-blah. And now she's taking revenge on me for not letting her use my ID to get a tattoo last night. But what did she expect? I'm white and she's black. I'm not even tan-white. I'm Canadian-tourist white. If the guy could mistake her for me, then he shouldn't be giving anyone a tattoo, right? I was just protecting her. Only, she doesn't realize that. I can tell by that look in her eyes-the same look she wore when she replaced my hand sanitizer with personal lubricant-that she's about to take what's left of my pride and kick it like a donkey. "Uh, we didn't get your name. Did you get his name, Emma?" she asks, as if on cue. "I tried, Chloe. But he wouldn't tell me, so I tackled him," I say, rolling my eyes. The guy smirks. This almost-smile hints at how breathtaking a real one would be. The tingling flares up again, and I rub my arms.

Here’s what I know to be true. We can bury the past all we like. We can use a hundred thousand distractions, some of which are healthy, some of which are not, to keep it under the ground—but when something isn’t processed, it will absolutely, positively come back and bite us on the ass. You had a hard life before you and Butch fell in love, and it was no doubt a huge relief to leave all of it behind and start fresh. But you can’t outrun what came before. Remember, Marissa, we are every age we have ever been at each moment in our lives. We carry it all with us like luggage. Sooner or later, the stuff with your brother was going to come up again. That’s just life.”" ― from "Blood Kiss: Black Dagger Legacy

Unfortunately, when hope diminishes, the hate is often turned most bitterly toward those who originally built up the hope. In all the speaking that I have done in the United States before varied audiences, including some hostile whites, the only time that I have been booed was one night in a Chicago mass meeting by some young members of the Black Power movement. I

Hippocrates’s theory of the humors, which was perpetuated by Galen. The theory held that the body possessed four fluids, or humors, which corresponded to the four elements from which all material being was composed: earth (black bile), fire (yellow bile), water (phlegm), and air (water). A predominance of one humor affected an individual’s temperament, so a warm, happy, extroverted personality was associated with blood. A choleric, fiery temperament indicated a predominance of yellow bile (khole in Greek), while a melancholic or dark disposition was caused by the predominance of black bile. Finally, a phlegmatic temperament was due to an excess of phlegm. It was believed that an individual in good health enjoyed a balance of the four humors and that illness was an expression of imbalance.

Wise leaders seek to understand how the brain reacts to stress and practise simple, almost meditative techniques to stay calm, clear and connected. They use maps, mantras and anchors to navigate their way through highly pressurized situations, both personal and professional, and to bring themselves back to the moment. In this way they and their teams stay on top of their game and on top of the situation.

Nixon was clear to the men assembled that, in his view, “Rockefeller handled it well” because, as the president put it, “you see it’s the black business…he had to do it.”43 To a one, these men felt strongly that this rebellion was of a piece with the revolutionary plots that had recently been hatched in the California system by black activists such as Angela Davis, famed leader from the Black Panther Party. All

To those who say I am trying to change history, they should realize that the history of Confederate monuments represents a racist legacy all people should abhor. Moreover, many people did protest their construction. In 1900, Georgia's population was 46.7 percent African American and Virginia's was 35.6 percent, but Black people had been purged form the voting rolls and had no voice on the use of public land or money.

Puerto Rican and African American prisoners were subject to far more stringent rules when it came to family visitation as well. Twenty-six point six percent of all Puerto Ricans and 20.4 percent of all blacks at Attica were in common-law relationships, but prison policy was clear that no common-law wives or children from those unions were allowed to visit.36 Even letters between common-law partners were confiscated. In

Pressure is expectation, scrutiny and consequence,’ says Gilbert Enoka. ‘Under pressure, your attention is either diverted or on track. If you’re diverted, you have a negative emotional response and unhelpful behaviour. That means you’re stuck. That means you’re overwhelmed.’ On the other hand, if your attention is on track you have situational awareness and you execute accurately. You are clear, you adapt and you overcome.

She is a Weyward. And she carries another Weyward inside her. She gathers herself together, every cell blazing, and thinks: Now. The window breaks, a waterfall of sharp sounds. The room grows dark with feathered bodies, shooting through the broken window, the fireplace. Beaks, claws, and eyes flashing. Feathers brushing her skin. Simon yells, his hand loosening on her throat. She sucks in the air, falling to her knees, one hand cradling her stomach. Something touches her foot, and she sees a dark tide of spiders spreading across the floor. Birds continue to stream through the window. Insects, too: the azure flicker of damselflies, moths with orange eyes on their wings. Tiny, gossamer mayflies. Bees in a ferocious golden swarm. She feels something sharp on her shoulder, its claws digging into her flesh. She looks up at blue-black feathers, streaked with white. A crow. The same crow that has watched over her since she arrived. Tears fill her eyes, and she knows in that moment that she is not alone in the cottage. Altha is there, in the spiders that dance across the floor. Violet is there, in the mayflies that glisten and undulate like some great silver snake. And all the other Weyward women, from the first of the line, are there, too. They have always been with her, and always will be.

Think of all the love poured into him. Think of the tuitions for Montessori and music lessons. Think of the gasoline expended, the treads worn carting him to football games, basketball tournaments, and Little League. Think of the time spent regulating sleepovers. Think of the surprise birthday parties, the daycare, and the reference checks on babysitters. Think of World Book and Childcraft. Think of checks written for family photos. Think of credit cards charged for vacations. Think of soccer balls, science kits, chemistry sets, racetracks, and model trains. Think of all the embraces, all the private jokes, customs, greetings, names, dreams, all the shared knowledge and capacity of a black family injected into that vessel of flesh and bone. And think of how that vessel was taken, shattered on the concrete, and all its holy contents, all that had gone into him, sent flowing back to the earth. Think of your mother, who had no father. And your grandmother, who was abandoned by her father. And your grandfather, who was left behind by his father. And think of how Prince's daughter was now drafted into those solemn ranks and deprived of her birthright — that vessel which was her father, which brimmed with twenty-five years of love and was the investment of her grandparents and was to be her legacy.

Mary.” Turning at the soft sound of her name, she glanced behind herself. Then frowned. “Lassiter?” “I’m over here.” “Where?” She looked all around. “Why is your voice echoing?” “Chimney.” “What?” “I’m stuck in the fucking chimney.” She raced over to the fireplace and got on her hands and knees. Looking up into the dark flue, she shook her head. “Lass? What the hell are you doing up there?” His voice emanated from somewhere above her. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?” “What are you—” An arm came down. A very sooty arm that was encased in a red sleeve that had white trim. Or what had been white trim and which was now smudged with ash. “You’re stuck!” she exclaimed. “And thank God no one lit this fire!” “You’re telling me,” he muttered in his disembodied voice. “I had to blow out Fritz’s match like a hundred times before he gave up. Fuck, that sounds dirty. Anyway, just remind me never to try to be Santa for your kid, okay? I’m not doing this again, even for her.” Mary stretched a little farther in, but the logs on the hearth stopped her. “Lassiter. Why can’t you free yourself by dematerializing—” “I’m impaled on a hook that’s iron. I can’t go ghost. And will you just take this?” “What?” “This.” He turned his hand toward her and there was…a box…in it? A small navy blue box. “Open it. And before you ask, I already cleared it with your pinheaded hellren. He’s not jel or anything.” Mary sat back and shook her head. “I’m more worried about you—” “Justopenthefuckingthingalready.” Taking off the top, she found a slightly smaller box inside. That was velvet. “What is this?” As she lifted the lid, she…gasped. It was a pair of diamond earrings. A pair of perfectly matched, sparkly, diamond… “A mother’s tears,” Lassiter’s slightly echo-y voice said softly. “So hard, so beautiful. I told you everything was going to be all right. And those are to remind you of how strong you are, how strong your love for your daughter is…how, even in the worst of times, things have a way of working out as they should.” Blinking away tears, she thought of her crying in the foyer in front of the angel, crying because all had been lost. “They’re just beautiful,” she said hoarsely. -Lassiter & Mary

And he was not surprised that the mahmen was the one who’d woman’d up. After however many years in homicide, he had learned about the differences between the sexes. Men were physically stronger, true. But the women? They were the warriors. As much as those males who had come with her would have run into a burning building to save her, not one of them was strong enough to take her place for this heartbreaking duty. Because they couldn’t handle it. “All

Idge says that there are moments when revolution is possible. Most of the time, we’re all – everyone, from the poorest beggar out there to the Patros on his golden throne – caught in the gears, controlled by these invisible forces, and if we act against them we’re crushed. But there are moments when things can change, when the forces balance and it’s possible for people – individual people – to make a big difference. To – realign things. Remake the world.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she wondered why blood relatives were given such importance in people’s lives. The genetic lottery, which no one volunteered to play, spit you out wherever it did, without regard to compatibility, and yet somehow you were supposed to imbue that accident of procreation with all kinds of emotional weight and significance—simply because your parents managed to help you stay alive until you could get the fuck out of their house.

Either way, they didn’t know how I’d turn out when they signed me up for this,” she argued. “For all they knew, I could’ve ended up with two heads or three arms or something.” “Ohhhhhh, that would’ve been amazing!” Ro jumped in. “The Black Swan should totally make that happen someday!” “I’m pretty sure everyone involved with Project Moonlark trusted that Forkle knew what he was doing,” Keefe said, ignoring his bodyguard. “He’s supersmart when he’s not being all curmudgeon-y.

Gods – all gods, I think – are just spells that keep going. Like waterwheels powered by the passage of souls, maybe. Prayer strengthens them, and so does residuum, the portion of the soul that remains in the corpse after death. The gods are not omniscient or omnipotent, just very different from us. More powerful in some ways, but locked into patterns of behaviour they cannot change, so they’re not really sentient, I suppose. Saints are p-p-points of congruency between our world and theirs.

We’re in a period right now where nobody asks any questions about psychology. No one has any feeling for human motivation. No one talks about sexuality in terms of emotional needs and symbolism and the legacy of childhood. Sexuality has been politicized--“Don’t ask any questions!” "No discussion!" “Gay is exactly equivalent to straight!” And thus in this period of psychological blindness or inertness, our art has become dull. There’s nothing interesting being written--in fiction or plays or movies. Everything is boring because of our failure to ask psychological questions. So I say there is a big parallel between Bill Cosby and Bill Clinton--aside from their initials! Young feminists need to understand that this abusive behavior by powerful men signifies their sense that female power is much bigger than they are! These two people, Clinton and Cosby, are emotionally infantile--they're engaged in a war with female power. It has something to do with their early sense of being smothered by female power--and this pathetic, abusive and criminal behavior is the result of their sense of inadequacy. Now, in order to understand that, people would have to read my first book, "Sexual Personae"--which of course is far too complex for the ordinary feminist or academic mind! It’s too complex because it requires a sense of the ambivalence of human life. Everything is not black and white, for heaven's sake! We are formed by all kinds of strange or vague memories from childhood. That kind of understanding is needed to see that Cosby was involved in a symbiotic, push-pull thing with his wife, where he went out and did these awful things to assert his own independence. But for that, he required the women to be inert. He needed them to be dead! Cosby is actually a necrophiliac--a style that was popular in the late Victorian period in the nineteenth-century. It's hard to believe now, but you had men digging up corpses from graveyards, stealing the bodies, hiding them under their beds, and then having sex with them. So that’s exactly what’s happening here: to give a woman a drug, to make her inert, to make her dead is the man saying that I need her to be dead for me to function. She’s too powerful for me as a living woman. And this is what is also going on in those barbaric fraternity orgies, where women are sexually assaulted while lying unconscious. And women don’t understand this! They have no idea why any men would find it arousing to have sex with a young woman who’s passed out at a fraternity house. But it’s necrophilia--this fear and envy of a woman’s power. And it’s the same thing with Bill Clinton: to find the answer, you have to look at his relationship to his flamboyant mother. He felt smothered by her in some way. But let's be clear--I’m not trying to blame the mother! What I’m saying is that male sexuality is extremely complicated, and the formation of male identity is very tentative and sensitive--but feminist rhetoric doesn’t allow for it. This is why women are having so much trouble dealing with men in the feminist era. They don’t understand men, and they demonize men.

We’ll all fight,” Khalila said. She took another step forward. She was wearing her black Scholar’s robe, and it rippled like shadows in the breeze. “When you go to Boston, you will carry the word of what happened. You will become symbols of what the Burners will become—for better, or for worse. I beg you to think of that legacy, and the future we will share, because one day, we will be friends again, Dr. Askuwheteau. One day, the Library will meet with you in peace, and we will bury our dead together. We are not your enemies. The people in the Serapeums are not your enemies. Please remember, when you tell your stories, when you start your fires, that we saw your home, we saw the love you had for books. Remember that for each of us, that love is why we are here. Why we exist. And remember that we see you, and we grieve for you.” There was something mesmerizing about her in that moment, Jess thought; she seemed taller. Stronger. More real than ever before. It was impossible to look at Khalila Seif and not believe her, not feel the compassion that flowed out of her. She bowed to the survivors of Philadelphia. Askuwheteau stood there for a long, silent moment, staring at her. “You are my enemy,” he said to Khalila at last. “But you have my respect. I will think on what you say.” He picked up a small leather pack from the grass by his feet. “But you should go. Because if any of us find those wearing the sign of the Library here past tomorrow, I may not want to protect you. Anger is like the fires that still burn in my city. It will take time to die.” They

Many have argued that Obama’s legacy is tainted by the fact that on his watch the Democratic Party haemorrhaged support to the Republicans, that he enabled policies of illegal domestic surveillance, doubled the national debt, allowed millions of citizens to fall below the poverty line and was guilty of reckless interventionism in foreign disputes. What these critics forget is that Obama was mixed race, and all of these flaws can be attributed to his white side. If he had been fully black, his legacy would have been irreproachable.

All elves were jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but there was something particularly handsome about Keefe Sencen—and the boy was well aware of it. Though he seemed a little off his game at the moment. His smug smirk was noticeably absent as he scrounged around his blankets, searching for something. “Here,” Ro said, tossing Keefe a wrinkled black tunic from the floor. “Bet you’re wishing it didn’t smell so much like sweaty boy in here, huh?” “It’s fine,” Sophie promised, even if the room could definitely use some airing out. A good cleaning would work wonders too. Everywhere she looked were piles of crumpled clothes and scattered shoes and stacks of papers and plates of half-eaten food. And all the thick curtains were drawn tight, leaving the space dim and stuffy. The room was clearly designed to be beautiful, with marble floors broken up by rugs woven to look like pristine sand, and seafoam walls inlaid with starfish and anemone shells. But under Keefe’s care, it was a disaster zone. Even the furniture had a strange randomness to the arrangement that made Sophie wonder if he’d moved it all just to bug his dad.

As he kissed her back, she thought about what happily-ever-afters were about, and decided that true love didn’t mean effortless, and ever-after wasn’t about cruise control. You started with the attraction, and then you opened your heart and your soul—but all that, which was no small thing, just got you to first base. There were many, many other trips to take to deeper levels of greater acceptance and understanding. That was where you found the happy. And the ever-after was the work you were always willing to put in to stay close, to learn, and to grow as people together. “I

Almost all of them had mustaches, as though they had learned to blend in by watching movies from the early eighties. He wore a white shirt, and the top button was undone; and for some reason my eyes focused on the thick tuft of black hair poking out. I looked into his dark eyes, and he smiled at me in a way that told me he was looking forward to doing what he was about to do, and I started to cry. I slid down the wall until I dangled from the shackles around my wrists, watching through my tears as he pulled razor blades, knives, pliers, and a drill from the desk they had in the center of the room.” When

there is no stronger taboo today than talking about race. In many cases, just being accused of “racism” can get you fired. Yet, teachers in America know the races differ in school achievement; policemen know the races differ in crime rates; social workers know the races differ in rates of welfare dependency or getting infected with AIDS. And sports fans know that Blacks excel at boxing, basketball, and running. They all wonder why. Some blame poverty, White racism, and the legacy of slavery. Although many doubt that “White racism” really tells the whole story, few dare share their doubts. When it comes to race, do you really dare to say what you think?

Ancient Rome, who through the edicts of her Emperors Theodosius in the 4th century A.D. and Justinian in the 6th century A.D. abolished the Mysteries of the African Continent; that is the ancient culture system of the world. The higher metaphysical doctrines of those Mysteries could not be comprehended; the spiritual powers of the priests were unsurpassed; the magic of the rites and ceremonies filled the people with awe; Egypt was the holy land of the ancient world and the Mysteries were the one, ancient and holy Catholic religion, whose power was supreme. This lofty culture system of the Black people filled Rome with envy, and consequently she legalized Christianity which she had persecuted for five long centuries, and set it up as a state religion and as a rival of Mysteries, its own mother. This is why the Mysteries have been despised; this is why other ancient religions of the Black people are despised; because they are all offspring of the African Mysteries, which have never been clearly understood by Europeans, and consequently have provoked their prejudice and condemnation. In keeping with the plan of Emperors Theodosius and Justinian to exterminate and forever suppress the culture system of the African continents the Christian church established its missionary enterprise to fight against what it has called paganism.

First, we put ourself in a resourceful state: calm, positive, clear. Then we ‘anchor’ that state through a specific, replicable physical action – something out of the ordinary, like scrunching up our toes, stamping our foot, staring into the distance, throwing water over our face. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat – until it’s automatic. Then, when we recognize the symptoms of pressure – when our focus closes down, our vision narrows, our heart rate lifts, our anxiety increases, our self-consciousness rises – we can use the anchor to reboot. And return to our centre. Like a doctor using paddles on a cardiac arrest, the ‘jolt of recognition’ reactivates our more resourceful state and returns us to the moment.

We're all so happy you're feeling better, Miss McIntosh. Looks like you still have a good bump on your noggin, though," she says in her childlike voice. Since there is no bump on my noggin, I take a little offense but decide to drop it. "Thanks, Mrs. Poindexter. It looks worse than it feels. Just a little tender." "Yeah, I'd say the door got the worst of it," he says beside me. Galen signs himself in on the unexcused tardy sheet below my name. When his arm brushes against mine, it feels like my blood's turned into boiling water. I turn to face him. My dreams really do not do him justice. Long black lashes, flawless olive skin, cut jaw like an Italian model, lips like-for the love of God, have some dignity, nitwit. He just made fun of you. I cross my arms and lift my chin. "You would know," I say. He grins, yanks my backpack from me, and walks out. Trying to ignore the waft of his scent as the door shuts, I look to Mrs. Poindexter, who giggles, shrugs, and pretends to sort some papers. The message is clear: He's your problem, but what a great problem to have. Has he charmed he sense out of the staff here, too? If he started stealing kids' lunch money, would they also giggle at that? I growl through clenched teeth and stomp out of the office. Galen is waiting for me right outside the door, and I almost barrel into him. He chuckles and catches my arm. "This is becoming a habit for you, I think." After I'm steady-after Galen steadies me, that is-I poke my finger into his chest and back him against the wall, which only makes him grin wider. "You...are...irritating...me," I tell him. "I noticed. I'll work on it." "You can start by giving me my backpack." "Nope." "Nope?" "Right-nope. I'm carrying it for you. It's the least I can do." "Well, can't argue with that, can I?" I reach around for it, but he moves to block me. "Galen, I don't want you to carry it. Now knock it off. I'm late for class." "I'm late for it too, remember?" Oh, that's right. I've let him distract me from my agenda. "Actually, I need to go back to the office." "No problem. I'll wait for you here, then I'll walk you to class." I pinch the bridge of my nose. "That's the thing. I'm changing my schedule. I won't be in your class anymore, so you really should just go. You're seriously violating Rule Numero Uno." He crosses his arms. "Why are you changing your schedule? Is it because of me?" "No." "Liar." "Sort of." "Emma-" "Look, I don't want you to take this personally. It's just that...well, something bad happens every time I'm around you." He raises a brow. "Are you sure it's me? I mean, from where I stood, it looked like your flip-flops-" "What were we arguing about anyway? We were arguing, right?" "You...you don't remember?" I shake my head. "Dr. Morton said I might have some short-term memory loss. I do remember being mad at you, though." He looks at me like I'm a criminal. "You're saying you don't remember anything I said. Anything you said." The way I cross my arms reminds me of my mother. "That's what I'm saying, yes." "You swear?" "If you're not going to tell me, then give me my backpack. I have a concussion, not broken arms. I'm not helpless." His smile could land him a cover shoot for any magazine in the country. "We were arguing about which beach you wanted me to take you to. We were going swimming after school." "Liar." With a capital L. Swimming-drowning-falls on my to-do list somewhere below giving birth to porcupines. "Oh, wait. You're right. We were arguing about when the Titanic actually sank. We had already agreed to go to my house to swim.

Uh, I rely on Dex and Biana all the time,” Sophie argued, holding up her hand—and then realizing the panic-switch ring that Dex had designed for her was hidden under her glove. “The only reason I haven’t relied on Wylie as much is because he’s newer to working with the Black Swan.” She glanced at her friends, expecting to find them nodding along. But they were all staring at their feet. “What?” “Well… I mean… you do leave us out sometimes,” Biana mumbled. “Or you only include us if we force you to.” “And it’s never like that for Keefe and Fitz,” Dex added. “It totally is for Keefe,” Sophie argued. “He just doesn’t take no for an answer—you know how Keefe is. Plus, we’re fighting his mom. And Fitz and I are Cognates

Whites generally are unable or unwilling to acknowledge how structural patterning generates white bias and responsibility for that structural patterning. Perhaps it is Mumia Abu-Jamal who again has deftly and complexly summarized the phenomenon of viciously racist bias in relation to African American experience of “criminal justice.” Contemplating Pennsylvania’s death row population which was 60 percent black at the time of his writing in a state where blacks make up only 11 percent of the population, Abu-Jamal reflects: Does this mean that African-Americans are somehow innocents, subjected to a set up by state officials? Not especially. What it does suggest is that state actors, at all stages of the criminal justice system, including slating at the police station, arraignment at the judicial office, pretrial, trial and sentencing stage before a court, treat African-American defendants with a special vengeance not experienced by white defendants.[94] Hence, we have the prison house and criminal justice structures as a bastion of white racism, displaying severe racial disparities, unequally disseminating terror and group loss for racialized groups in the US. It is a bitter fruit of the nation’s legacy of four centuries of slavery in North America, of the Jim Crow rollback of Reconstruction that often was reinforced by lynching practices. Some of today’s prisons are, in fact, built on sites of former slave plantations.[95] More importantly, prisons today are institutions that preserve a white society marked by white dominance and the confinement of nonwhite bodies, especially black bodies, exposing those bodies to commodification, immobilization, and disintegration.

It gives the whole game away that college football is so popular in the SEC, where the legacy of Jim Crow and segregation is so powerful, and now they worship Black football players who make no money and are out there providing entertainment. The university people and the networks intentionally create this fake feel—they use the football field to miseducate people with a fictional portrayal of life off the field. The fiction is that because all these white student fans are cheering majority-Black teams, the dynamic is somehow postracial. It creates an illusion for both the fan and the player—the student and the student-athlete—so they don’t have to face how messed-up this country is. You’re not Black on the field. You’re a representative of your school. There’s no New Jim Crow when you’re on the field. There’s no Donald Trump. There’s no Trayvon Martin.

But he wasn’t done with her. Before she could catch her breath, he pulled out, flipped her over, and yanked her onto all fours. Rearing up behind her, he bit her again, on the other side, and then he was in her once more, taking her from the rear, one hand running up between her slapping breasts and locking on the base of her throat, the other planted on the floor, holding them both up. She was facing the fire, and her vision swung wildly with each of his pounding thrusts—the flames jumping this way and that, her hair flying around until some lashed into her open mouth. At some point, her upper body just collapsed onto the blanket, her sex up in the air, his for the taking as he drilled her over and over again, coming so many times, he coated her with his marking scent. Elise forgot how many orgasms she had. All she cared about was that he never, ever stop.

Perhaps the most worrying legacy of African slavery in the New World is the persistent oppression of all people of African descent in the Americas. A recent quantitative study shows that up to about 1820, approximately five Africans were brought to the New World for each European migrant (Eltis 1983: 255; Engerman 1986: 318–22). But in the course of the nineteenth century all that changed, as the booming American economies attracted free migrants from Europe. This means that the African slaves did the back-breaking work, but as the fruits of this work began to mature others came in to reap the harvest, with the blacks continuing to be held back in bondage. Even after emancipation, legal and other forms of oppression still blocked black access to power and resources. Thus the process of capitalist accumulation passed them by, giving rise to a black population in the Americas generally characterized by poverty, extreme deprivation, lack of education, disease,

So, fast forward from Cardiff 1997 to Auckland 2011, from a Rugby World Cup quarter-final to a World Cup final, from a team heading towards defeat to a team heading towards victory. It’s the same two sides playing: New Zealand vs. France. It’s just as tight, but this time New Zealand lead by one point. Read the body language. Richie McCaw breathes, holds his wrist, stamps his feet – reconnecting with himself, returning to the moment. He looks around. There are no glazed eyes now. No walking dead. Brad Thorne throws water over himself, cooling his thoughts. Kieran Read stares out to the far distant edge of the stadium, regaining perspective. New Zealand, the stadium of four million people, is less calm. The dread casts a long black cloud. The spectators can’t help but flash back to the bad pictures. They are in the Red, but the All Blacks stay in the Blue. The clock counts itself down, slowly, slowly; until finally . . . the whistle blows. 8-7 New Zealand. ‘We smashed ’em,’ says Graham Henry. And in their heads, they did.

Body parts really don’t like to be cut, stabbed or hacked into sections, and they express their anger by leaking all over the fuck. Jesus, we’re, like, seventy percent water or something? And you learn that’s so fucking true when you go to a fresh scene. Pools of it. Drips of it. Speckles of it. Then you got the stained clothes, rugs, bedsheets, walls, flooring—or if it’s outside, the ground cover, the concrete, the asphalt. And then there’s the smell. Blood, sweat, urine, other shit. That juicy bouquet will get in your sinuses and stay there for hours afterward.” He shook his head again. “The older cases . . . the smell is worse than the mess. Water deaths, with the bloating, are just ugly—and if that gas that’s built up gets out? The stench will knock you on your ass. And I don’t know, I wasn’t too crazy for the burn deaths either. I mean, you’d think we’d realize we’re not different than any other mammal—cooked meat is cooked meat, period. But I’ve never seen a grown man puke up his coffee and donuts over a medium rare T-bone.

Linda's black figure detached itself upright on the light of the lantern with her arms raised above her head as though she were going to throw herself over. "It is I who loved you," she whispered, with a face as set and white as marble in the moonlight. "I! Only I! She will forget thee, killed miserably for her pretty face. I cannot understand. I cannot understand. But I shall never forget thee. Never!" She stood silent and still, collecting her strength to throw all her fidelity, her pain, bewilderment, and despair into one great cry. "Never! Gian' Battista!" Dr. Monygham, pulling round in the police-galley, heard the name pass over his head. It was another of Nostromo's triumphs, the greatest, the most enviable, the most sinister of all. In that true cry of undying passion that seemed to ring aloud from Punta Mala to Azuera and away to the bright line of the horizon, overhung by a big white cloud shining like a mass of solid silver, the genius of the magnificent Capataz de Cargadores dominated the dark gulf containing his conquests of treasure and love.

The word character comes from the Ancient Greek, 'kharakter,' meaning they mark that is left on a coin during its manufacture. Character is also the mark left on you by life, and the mark we leave on life. It's the impact you make when you're here, the trace you leave once you've gone. Character rises out of our values, our purpose, the standards we set ourselves, our sacrifice and commitment, and the decisions we make under pressure, but it is primarily defined by the contribution we make, the responsibility we take, the leadership we show. [...] John Wooden said, 'Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.' Character is forged by the way we respond to the challenges of life and business, by the way we lead our life and teams. If we value life, life values us. If we devalue it, we dishonour ourselves and our one chance at living. THIS is our time. Leadership is surely the example we set. The way we lead our own life is what makes us a leader.

Mr. President, Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans and the world, when day comes we ask ourselves where can we find light in this never-ending shade? The loss we carry asea we must wade. We’ve braved the belly of the beast. We’ve learned that quiet isn’t always peace. In the norms and notions of what just is isn’t always justice. And yet, the dawn is ours before we knew it. Somehow we do it. Somehow we’ve weathered and witnessed a nation that isn’t broken, but simply unfinished. We, the successors of a country and a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one. And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn’t mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect. We are striving to forge our union with purpose. To compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man. And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us, but what stands before us. We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside. We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another. We seek harm to none and harmony for all. Let the globe, if nothing else, say this is true. That even as we grieved, we grew. That even as we hurt, we hoped. That even as we tired, we tried that will forever be tied together victorious. Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division. Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid. If we’re to live up to her own time, then victory won’t lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we’ve made. That is the promise to glade, the hill we climb if only we dare. It’s because being American is more than a pride we inherit. It’s the past we step into and how we repair it. We’ve seen a forest that would shatter our nation rather than share it. Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy. This effort very nearly succeeded. But while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated. In this truth, in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us. This is the era of just redemption. We feared it at its inception. We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter, to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe? Now we assert, how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us? We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised, but whole, benevolent, but bold, fierce, and free. We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation. Our blunders become their burdens. But one thing is certain, if we merge mercy with might and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change our children’s birthright. So let us leave behind a country better than one we were left with. Every breath from my bronze-pounded chest we will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one. We will rise from the gold-limbed hills of the West. We will rise from the wind-swept Northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution. We will rise from the Lake Rim cities of the Midwestern states. We will rise from the sun-baked South. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough.

It was common knowledge at one prominent women’s brand I worked for that the reason they didn’t have more women of color, specifically Black women, on their legacy magazine covers was because they didn’t sell as well. For a business enterprise, and a financially struggling one at that, the editorial strategy to routinely flood the covers with normatively sized straight white women was presented as necessary business, and not a deeply racist lens. But this is where I’ve encountered capitalism to be at its most damaging: it provides an all-encompassing language to code racism, heterosexism, and classism as something else—to establish distance between these deeply coursing prejudices and the unavoidable realities of running a business. This distance insulates. It establishes an alternative reality in which testimonials, diversity reports, investigations, and data analysis on representation don’t resonate because making money is the ultimate objective above all else. But that’s all the more reason why the impetus to drive profits also needs to be aligned and analyzed in endeavors against oppression. Because the drive to make money, more money, more money than your competitors, more money than you made last year, more money than projected for the following year is an enduring vehicle for suppression.

When I was twelve years old, I looked in the mirror and I saw what I perceived to be my faults and my mother's faults. These coalesced into a dark mark that I would carry through my life, a coating of what I saw, which came from others' hatred of me, and all this forested a hatred of myself. I thought being unwanted and abandoned and persecuted was the legacy of the poor southern Black woman. But as an adult, I see my mother's legacy anew. I see how all the burdens she bore, the burdens of her history and identity and of our country's history and identity , enable her to manifest her greatest gifts. My mother had the courage to look at four hungry children and find a way to fill them. My mother had the strength to work her body to its breaking point to provide for herself and her children. My mother had the residence to cobble together a family from the broken bits of another. And my mother's example teaches me other things: This how a transplanted people survived a holocaust and slavery. This is how Black people in the South organized to vote under the shadow of terrorism and the noose. This is how human begins sleep and wake and fight and survive. In the end, this is a how a mother teaches her daughter to have courage, to have strength, to be resilient, to open her eyes to what it is, and to make something of it.

The use of ghosts as a means of social control predated the Klan. Slave owners employed so-called patterollers, usually poor whites, who would patrol the countryside at night; such patrols would regularlyuse spook stories, among other tactics, to help keep enslaved people from escaping. "The fraudulent ghost," [Gladys-Marie] Fry writes, "was the first in a gradually developed system of night-riding creatures, the fear of which was fostered by white for the purpose of slave control." A man in a white sheet on horseback riding ominously through a forest could help substantiate rumers that the forest was haunted and that those who valued their lives best avoid it. By spreading ghost stories, Southern whites hoped to limit the unauthorized movement of black people. If cemeteries, crossroads, and forests came to be known particularly as haunted, it's because they presented the easiest means of escape and had to be patrolled. Now it's common to think of such places as the provenance of spirits. We have stories for such places: a tragic death, forlorn lovers, a devil waiting to make a deal -- stories that reflect a rich tradition of American folklore. But all this might have come much later, and these places might have first earned their haunted reputation through much more deviant methods. In the ghost-haunting legacies of many of these public spaces lies a hidden history of patrolling and limiting access.

At the risk of oversimplifying a topic that deserves entire books, we can summarize like this: During enslavement, many Black cooks learned their way around kitchens because their lives could depend on having that knowledge and skill. After slavery was abolished, many took to slinging fried chicken (or cooking in general) as one way to make a living. Interestingly, it wasn’t until Black folks began navigating their supposed freedoms-applying to schools, looking for paid work, seeking housing-that cartoonish, offensive images of Black folks eagerly consuming chicken or stealing chickens began to appear in essays, comics, advertisements, and postcards, perpetuating a narrative by white society that Black people were subhuman and needed to be controlled, policed, and locked out of mainstream opportunities. Exacerbated by the deep white resentment of Black people’s increasing social and political mobility (this period saw the largest representation of Black people in Congress than any time since), the idea took root that being Black meant that you loved fried chicken so much that you couldn’t resist it. This narrative is a painful legacy of slavery that wasn’t of our own making and is ironic, given that people all over the world get down with wings and things. But the essence of this stereotype persists. We know folks who refuse to eat fried chicken around white people, or chefs who don’t cook it in their restaurants, because they feel that’s the only thing certain diners expect from them…American fried chicken tastes good. It’s also complicated.

Another secret organization that tries to influence world politics is the Bilderberg Group, founded in 1954 by Prince Bernhard van Lippe Biesterfeld and Joseph Retinger. This group consists of a number of permanent members that form a small core, and a number of changing members that are invited to take part in conferences. The members meet once a year behind closed doors. The Inner Circle, that is the Round Table, consists of nine members of the Bilderberg Group. Then there is a decision making forum that consists of thirteen members. Finally there are three more members that make up the Inner Circles. These consist of members of the black nobility and other exceptionally influential men. Despite the strict confidentiality and secrecy surrounding the Bilderberg Group, some of their objectives got out. The following objectives are strived for: An international economic Power Block. Founding an international Parliament. Creating an international “World Army” through the abolition of national armed forces. Restriction of the power of national governments in favor of a unique and coordinated World Government. Traditionally the international press never mentions anything about the content of the off-the-record discussions. Sometimes a conference where prominent members from the world of politics, business and society speak confidentially about international questions is mentioned briefly. It is always mentioned that the participants assist as private persons, not in their official occupations. However it is striking that the participants of every Bilderberg conference are flown in from all parts of the world with airplanes and helicopters belonging to different air forces. Also, the large police force used to prevent disturbances and protect the invited is paid for by the tax contributors.[48]

I'm glad you brought it up. I wasn't sure how to approach you about it, but this makes it easier for both of us, don't you think? And if you keep cooperating, I'm sure I can get you leniency." I gulp. "Leniency?" "Yes, Emma. Of course you realize I could arrest you right now. You understand that, right?" Ohmysweetgoodness, he came all this way to press assault charges against me! Is he going to sue me, sue my family? I'm eighteen now. I could legally be sued. The heat on my cheeks is part kill-me-now embarrassment and part where's-a-knife-when-you-need-one rage. "But it was an accident!" I hiss. "An accident? You've got to be kidding me." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "No, I am not kidding. Why would I ram into you on purpose? I don't even know you! And anyways, how do I know you didn't run into me, huh?" The idea is preposterous, but it leaves room for reasonable doubt. I can see by his expression he didn't think of that. "What?" He is struggling to follow, but what did I expect? He can't even find his class in a school with only three halls. That he found me clear across the country seems more miraculous than a push-up bra. "I said, you'll have to prove that I ran into you on purpose. That I meant to cause you harm. And besides, I checked with you at the time-" "Emma." "-and you said you didn't have injuries-" "Emma." "-but the only witness I have on my side is dead-" "EM-MA." "Did you hear me, Galen?" I turn around and yell at the remaining spectators in the hall as the bell rings. "CHLOE IS DEAD!" Sprinting is not a good idea for me in the first place. Sprinting with tears blurring my vision, even worse. But sprinting with tears blurring my vision and while wearing flip-flops is a lack of respect for human life, starting with my own. So then, I am not surprised when the door to the cafeteria opens into my face. I am a little surprised when everything goes black.

I heard the fear in the first music I ever knew, the music that pumped from boom boxes full of grand boast and bluster. The boys who stood out on Garrison and Liberty up on Park Heights loved this music because it told them, against all evidence and odds, that they were masters of their own lives, their own streets, and their own bodies. I saw it in the girls, in their loud laughter, in their gilded bamboo earrings that announced their names thrice over. And I saw it in their brutal language and hard gaze, how they would cut you with their eyes and destroy you with their words for the sin of playing too much. “Keep my name out your mouth,” they would say. I would watch them after school, how they squared off like boxers, vaselined up, earrings off, Reeboks on, and leaped at each other. I felt the fear in the visits to my Nana’s home in Philadelphia. You never knew her. I barely knew her, but what I remember is her hard manner, her rough voice. And I knew that my father’s father was dead and that my uncle Oscar was dead and that my uncle David was dead and that each of these instances was unnatural. And I saw it in my own father, who loves you, who counsels you, who slipped me money to care for you. My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that is exactly what was happening all around us. Everyone had lost a child, somehow, to the streets, to jail, to drugs, to guns. It was said that these lost girls were sweet as honey and would not hurt a fly. It was said that these lost boys had just received a GED and had begun to turn their lives around. And now they were gone, and their legacy was a great fear. Have they told you this story? When your grandmother was sixteen years old a young man knocked on her door. The young man was your Nana Jo’s boyfriend. No one else was home. Ma allowed this young man to sit and wait until your Nana Jo returned. But your great-grandmother got there first. She asked the young man to leave. Then she beat your grandmother terrifically, one last time, so that she might remember how easily she could lose her body. Ma never forgot. I remember her clutching my small hand tightly as we crossed the street. She would tell me that if I ever let go and were killed by an onrushing car, she would beat me back to life. When I was six, Ma and Dad took me to a local park. I slipped from their gaze and found a playground. Your grandparents spent anxious minutes looking for me. When they found me, Dad did what every parent I knew would have done—he reached for his belt. I remember watching him in a kind of daze, awed at the distance between punishment and offense. Later, I would hear it in Dad’s voice—“Either I can beat him, or the police.” Maybe that saved me. Maybe it didn’t. All I know is, the violence rose from the fear like smoke from a fire, and I cannot say whether that violence, even administered in fear and love, sounded the alarm or choked us at the exit. What I know is that fathers who slammed their teenage boys for sass would then release them to streets where their boys employed, and were subject to, the same justice. And I knew mothers who belted their girls, but the belt could not save these girls from drug dealers twice their age. We, the children, employed our darkest humor to cope. We stood in the alley where we shot basketballs through hollowed crates and cracked jokes on the boy whose mother wore him out with a beating in front of his entire fifth-grade class. We sat on the number five bus, headed downtown, laughing at some girl whose mother was known to reach for anything—cable wires, extension cords, pots, pans. We were laughing, but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge.

The duke was impressive to watch, in both strength and skill, and like a god, his skills were innate and flawless, his instincts without question.  Ellowyn began to see what all men saw in de Russe; she saw the black angel of legend. She saw Death.

It is not solely your fault, my lord. I... well, I believe I was quite angry with you this afternoon when you ignored me and I should not have been so…furious.” “You were belligerent.” “Aye, that too.” He fought off a smile. “You, my lady, have a bit of a temper.” “I do. I admit it. But if you know my father, then you also know it is an inherited trait.  He is a de Nerra, after all.

Why don’t you get along with her?” His expression sobered. “Rava is who she is. Being older than me and of more importance, she was raised differently and never felt the need to have much of a relationship with me. That’s not to say she doesn’t care about me--she does. I think she’s even proud of me, in her own way.” He touched the officer’s insignia tacked to the shoulder of his black, asymmetrically cut uniform jacket. “I fought to achieve this rank, not an easy task, for men are not generally placed in command positions. We’re too hotheaded, as a group. Still, she has no trouble stepping on and over me, which you can probably appreciate.” “Perhaps,” I said, though his words confused me. Certain activities were not deemed appropriate for me since I was a woman, but for the most part, I did not resent my lot in life. But Saadi was strong, intelligent and extremely capable. In Hytanica, he would have been the pride of his family. How could he have been overlooked in Cokyri? Had Rava been the pride of his family instead? “This place. It’s so different from Cokyri,” he continued, content to accept my simple answer. “Not that different,” I replied with a short laugh. “We eat and work and sleep.” “That’s not what I mean.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s how people look at me. It’s not the same at all.” “People hate you because you’re Cokyrian. Did you expect to take pleasure in that?” “That’s not it, either.” He thought for a moment. “It’s strange, the level of fear in the eyes of your women. Belligerence I expect, from everyone, but the fear primarily radiates from the women.” He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. “But what do I know? Listen, I haven’t even seen half of what there is to see in Hytanica. You could show me one day.” “You seem to be everywhere in this city,” I scoffed. “There can’t be much left for you to explore. Or have you just been following me around?” “Well, you’re the most interesting feature of the city I’ve come across.” He smirked, and I gave him a sideways glance. Was he admitting to stalking me? Then he chuckled. “As long as I’m assigned to oversee the city, we’re bound to run into each other. I would be lying, however, if I denied that I look forward to our encounters.” Heat again flooded my face. Saadi was making me uncomfortable. I was in danger of liking him too much.

Grand Provost.” Rava’s voice, clear and crisp, startled me. She stood to my left, in the doorway of her office, and I had the impression she had been watching for me. “Come in for a moment.” The Cokyrian second-in-command retreated into her alcove, and I followed, closing the door as she went to stand behind her desk. “How much power do you think he has?” she asked contemptuously, straightening her black tunic with a hard tug on the bottom. “I don’t understand.” I tenaciously met her eyes, despite the dread creeping along my spine. It was obvious she had overheard my conversation with Narian. “I understand the influence you have all too well. The commander will do exactly what you want, bend to your will. That alone should prove to you that strength is a woman’s endowment, not a man’s.” She was testing me, taunting me, and I resented her for it. “Are you going to continue with cryptic comments or are you going to say what you mean?” I demanded, rallying to take the offensive. “You may love Nantilam’s little prince, but you’re blind to the fact that he is an instrument. He has been from the beginning and he always will be, until she has no further use for him. Nantilam cares for him and would rather see him alive than dead, but she will not listen to him, or to words he bears from you. I have her ear. She will listen only to the most powerful woman n this godforsaken province, and that woman is me.” She was baiting me, successfully; I was on the verge of losing my temper. Knowing that would be a mistake, I let the silence between us lengthen, taking several slow and steady breaths. Then I gave her a small smile. “The High Priestess made me Grand Provost because she wanted a woman in control who would understand the people. You do not understand my people, Rava. You keep them miserable because you fear them. And everything else aside, that makes you weak.” Though Rava glowered at me, I was done with her, and coolly left her office. I could almost feel the slow tick of time, counting down to Narian’s return. He would prove one of us right and one of us wrong.

The Wall Street Journal (The Wall Street Journal) - Clip This Article on Location 1055 | Added on Tuesday, May 5, 2015 5:10:24 PM OPINION Baltimore Is Not About Race Government-induced dependency is the problem—and it’s one with a long history. By William McGurn | 801 words For those who see the rioting in Baltimore as primarily about race, two broad reactions dominate. One group sees rampaging young men fouling their own neighborhoods and concludes nothing can be done because the social pathologies are so overwhelming. In some cities, this view manifests itself in the unspoken but cynical policing that effectively cedes whole neighborhoods to the thugs. The other group tut-tuts about root causes. Take your pick: inequality, poverty, injustice. Or, as President Obama intimated in an ugly aside on the rioting, a Republican Congress that will never agree to the “massive investments” (in other words, billions more in federal spending) required “if we are serious about solving this problem.” There is another view. In this view, the disaster of inner cities isn’t primarily about race at all. It’s about the consequences of 50 years of progressive misrule—which on race has proved an equal-opportunity failure. Baltimore is but the latest liberal-blue city where government has failed to do the one thing it ought—i.e., put the cops on the side of the vulnerable and law-abiding—while pursuing “solutions” that in practice enfeeble families and social institutions and local economies. These supposed solutions do this by substituting federal transfers for fathers and families. They do it by favoring community organizing and government projects over private investment. And they do it by propping up failing public-school systems that operate as jobs programs for the teachers unions instead of centers of learning. If our inner-city African-American communities suffer disproportionately from crippling social pathologies that make upward mobility difficult—and they do—it is in large part because they have disproportionately been on the receiving end of this five-decade-long progressive experiment in government beneficence. How do we know? Because when we look at a slice of white America that was showered with the same Great Society good intentions—Appalachia—we find the same dysfunctions: greater dependency, more single-parent families and the absence of the good, private-sector jobs that only a growing economy can create. Remember, in the mid-1960s when President Johnson put a face on America’s “war on poverty,” he didn’t do it from an urban ghetto. He did it from the front porch of a shack in eastern Kentucky’s Martin County, where a white family of 10 eked out a subsistence living on an income of $400 a year. In many ways, rural Martin County and urban Baltimore could not be more different. Martin County is 92% white while Baltimore is two-thirds black. Each has seen important sources of good-paying jobs dry up—Martin County in coal mining, Baltimore in manufacturing. In the last presidential election, Martin Country voted 6 to 1 for Mitt Romney while Baltimore went 9 to 1 for Barack Obama. Yet the Great Society’s legacy has been depressingly similar. In a remarkable dispatch two years ago, the Lexington Herald-Leader’s John Cheves noted that the war on poverty sent $2.1 billion to Martin County alone (pop. 12,537) through programs including “welfare, food stamps, jobless benefits, disability compensation, school subsidies, affordable housing, worker training, economic development incentives, Head Start for poor children and expanded Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.” The result? “The problem facing Appalachia today isn’t Third World poverty,” writes Mr. Cheves. “It’s dependence on government assistance.” Just one example: When Congress imposed work requirements and lifetime caps for welfare during the Clinton administration, claims of disability jumped. Mr. Cheves quotes

David started up the wheeled stairs to the upper floors with his sword at the ready. He expected to encounter Blackadder warriors, protecting the lady of the castle. But there were none on the stairs and none guarding the door on the first floor. Damn it. She must have escaped. He gritted his teeth as he envisioned the lady’s guards leading her through the tunnel. He was about to open the chamber door to make sure it was empty when Brian, one of his best men, came down the stairs. “Laird, I checked all the chambers while ye were in the hall,” he said. David’s jaw ached from clenching it. “There’s one door on the floor just above us that wouldn’t open with the latch,” Brian said. “Shall I break it down?” David waved him aside and pulled the ax from his belt as he raced up the stairs. “Open it!” he shouted and pounded on the door. He did not wait. She could be escaping through a secret door this very moment. Three hard whacks with his ax, and the door split. He kicked it until it swung open, then stepped through. At his first sight of the woman, his feet became fixed to the floor. He felt strange, and his vision was distorted, as if as if he had swallowed a magical potion that narrowed his sight. He could see nothing in the room but her. She was extraordinarily lovely, with violet eyes, pale skin, and shining black hair. But there was something about her, something beyond her beauty, that held him captive. She was young, much younger than he expected, and her features and form were delicate, in marked contrast to the violent emotion in her eyes. David knew to the depths of his soul that a brute like him should not be the man to claim this fragile flower, even while the word mine beat in his head like a drum. He had no notion of how long he stood staring at her before he became aware that she held a sword. It was longer still before he noticed the two wee lasses peeking out from behind her like frightened kittens. Anger boiled up in his chest. Every Blackadder man in the castle who could still draw breath should have been here, standing between him and their lady. Instead, she faced him alone with a sword she could barely lift with both hands. It was a brave, but ridiculous gesture. There was no defense against him.

Tell me, does it seem worth it to you to suffer this punishment for a rag?” “Without question,” Steldor forcefully answered, and cheers rolled like thunder through the Hytanicans who had gathered to watch, sending chills down my spine. Rava’s lip curled into a sneer and she walked behind him, motioning to the Cokyrians holding the ropes to pull them tight, spreading his arms wide. With a swift and practiced motion, she raised the whip and brought it down hard upon his broad back, drawing blood with her first stroke, and gasps reverberated almost as loudly as had the cheers. “Is it worth it?” she demanded. “Yes,” he managed to answer, gritting his teeth against the pain. She struck him twice more, and though I could hardly bear it, I forced myself to watch, the muscles of my back spasming as each stroke landed. “Is it worth it?” “Yes!” Once more she struck, and again, until the ragged flesh and sinew of Steldor’s back was coated with blood--blood that flowed so heavily it ran down his sides. Women in the crowd now wept openly, while men cursed and shouted. I took in a shaky breath, knowing only one lash remained. Steldor would survive, and so would I. So would we all. Rava brought the whip down on Steldor for the sixth time, and his head hung forward. Was he still conscious? Or were the ropes around his wrists the only things keeping him from collapsing? Evidently wondering the same, Rava approached him and reached down, grasping a handful of his nearly black hair to pull his head up. His eyes were open, but barely focused. “Tell me, boy. Is it worth it?” she said in a near whisper. He smiled, revealing teeth smeared with blood from biting his tongue to hold back screams. “Yes.” Rage marred Rava’s face at her inability to break him, and she brutally shoved his head down. Backing up, she uncoiled the whip that was supposed to have retired, and flayed him again, more viciously than before. Steldor cried out this time, the sound tearing at my heart, and when the soldiers dropped the ropes, he crumpled forward. Knowing he had to be in tremendous pain, I was thankful for the respite the darkness would provide. Silence now reigned around us--no voices, no movements, hardly any breathing. It felt like the world had temporarily been turned to stone. Rava handed the whip to another soldier and stalked back toward the Bastion without a glance or word for anyone. She was cruel and heartless and arrogant, and hatred for her boiled within me as I watched the Cokyrians remove the ropes from Steldor’s wrists. They hauled him up by his arms and dragged him inside, leaving a crimson trail on the white walk. The rest of us followed, and I glanced at Cannan, who had managed more stoicism during the proceeding than had I. He had been witness to greater brutality during both wars with Cokyri, but I knew he would have willingly taken his son’s punishment in his stead. After seeing him in the cave, holding and protecting Steldor when we’d all feared the King’s death, I knew that beneath his strength and bravery, he ached.