Vra Quotes

His last election night was on the wide-open stretch of Zilker Park, against the backdrop of the Austin skyline. He remembers everything. He was eighteen years old in his first custom-made suit, corralled into a hotel around the corner with his family to watch the results while the crowd swelled outside, running with his arms open down the hallway when they called 270. He remembers it felt like his moment, because it was his mom and his family, but also realizing it was, in a way, not his moment at all, when he turned around and saw Zahra's mascara running down her face. He stood next to the stage set into the hillside of Zilker and looked into eyes upon eyes upon eyes of women who were old enough to have marched on Congress for the VRA in '65 and girls young enough never to have known a president who was a white man. All of them looking at their first Madam President.

Jy hoef niks te vra nie, jy moet luister. Dis ’n vaardigheid wat baie min mense deesdae het. En dit is, ironies genoeg, die ding wat ons die graagste wil hê. Vriende is eintlik maar net gewone mense wat luister.

Profesion Jam msue me të vra me sendet ma të buta me heshtje, me nji ''mirë, s'ka gja'', me mendje të lehtë ty që e vdekun dukesh n'ballkon të pozës tande. Kam me vra me mija herë dëshirën tande me sendet ma të buta: me ikje, me ndrojtje e mosvendim, bile me gazin tim të kotë, ty që dora ime kurr s'arrika me të ngjallë nga hija e baltës tande. Do të vras prap prap e përsëri prap mendimin tim për ty, me çka të më vijë përdore dhe mendimi yt, në vdekjen e vet, kah pak, kah pak do të marrë me vete pjesë nga unë, të vrame edhe ato me sende të buta me ç'të vjen përdore, me kohë, pritje, indiferencë...

— Vra sa zica ti-i sot? — Da, mi-i sot. — S-acuma umbli dupa dansul? — Ce sa fac? Daca nu umbla el dupa mine, umblu eu dupa dansul.

En skryf – vir ons – ’n gedig oor: “Die herinnering aan ’n aand is ’n appel”; en verbind dit met Adam-en-Eva se appel; en eet die appel aan die einde; en vra dan: En nou? Jy sal weet hoe. Ek is nie ’n digter nie.

internasionale woord vir ’n begeerte om te reis, “wanderlust”, afgelei is van die Duitse woord vir stap, “wandern”. In moderne Duits word Wanderlust gewoonlik vervang deur Fernweh, wat letterlik vertaal kan word as “weemoed vir die verte”, die teenoorgestelde van Heimweh of “weemoed vir die huis”. En tog kan jy terselfdertyd aan albei hierdie toestande ly. Vra maar vir my. Ek is ’n reisiger wat al dekades lank twee swaar tasse saam met my dra. Aan my een arm hang ’n tas wat vol Fernweh geprop is, aan my ander ’n tas vol Heimweh. Die begeerte om verder te reis is altyd daar. Maar omdat ek so ver van my geboorteland af lewe, gaan die heimwee nooit heeltemal weg nie. Die Britse skrywer

Wat drink jy?” vra Anderson se knapie nuuskierig. “Aperol. Wil jy ‘n slukkie hê?” “Nee dankie. Dit lyk soos Oros!

Tydens die gesprek sê Breytenbach volgens Brink ook die volgende: Here man, dit vra nie dapperheid nie, dis so natuurlik as asemhaal. Nou kom sit jy op TV en as die man sê jy’s die grootste skrywer in SA, dan val jy hom nie in die rede nie: jy sê nie hokaai, wat van Alan Paton, wat van Nadine Gordimer, wat van Zeke Mphahlele? nie [sic] ... Jy bou vir jou ’n beeld op & jy vergeet eendag gaan jy ingehaal word.64

The VRA was nevertheless a seismic shift in thought, action, and execution for the U.S. government when compared with the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and its equally enfeebled companion legislation of 1960. Rather than passively waiting for locales to violate the rights of American citizens and then sitting still until those who had been routinely brutalized by this system made a formal complaint, the VRA put the responsibility for adhering to the Constitution onto state and local governments.

[Jeff] Sessions was "someone who thinks that the VRA ought not to have ever been in existence" because, for him, it was an "intrusive piece of legislation." Thus, in a move that flipped the Voting Rights Act on its head, his investigation targeted only counties where African Americans had won office.

The violence of Jim Crow has given way to craftier present-day methods of disenfranchising marginalized communities, according to this stirring history of American voting rights. Thomas begins by recapping laws that historically prevented Black people in segregated Southern states from voting, including exorbitant poll taxes and absurdly complicated “literacy” tests required of Black would-be voters but not white voters. More brutal methods were also used, the author notes; Black Southerners who tried to register to vote were often fired, evicted, arrested, beaten, or even killed. Thomas goes on to explore today’s subtler means of voter suppression. These include voter ID laws that disproportionately disqualify minorities who lack official documents; laws that reduce the numbers of polling locations or make absentee voting harder; purges of voter lists; and restrictions on who can vote. Thomas weaves in detailed narratives of voting-rights milestones, like the 1965 voter registration drive and marches in Selma, Alabama, that led to police violence and galvanized the passage of the Voting Rights Act; he also explores later Supreme Court decisions that weakened the VRA and contemporary efforts to restore it. Throughout, the author spotlights voting-rights heroes from Bob Moses, who was beaten while leading a 1961 Mississippi registration drive, to Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic candidate for governor of Georgia who founded Fair Fight Action, which registered thousands of voters and helped deliver Georgia to Joe Biden in 2020. Thomas combines deep dives into voting law with vivid, dramatic retellings of epic civil rights battles; his prose is lucid and perceptive, with occasional elegant perorations on the sacredness of the franchise. (“When people lose the power to vote, they lose the ability to choose their defenders. They lose representatives who understand, care about, and work to protect their rights. As a result, the US as a whole loses its voice.”) The result is a captivating history that shows how relevant the defense of voting rights remains. An erudite and engrossing look at the perennial struggle to safeguard the cornerstone of democracy.