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4.61 AVERAGE
4.61 AVERAGE
This should be required reading for all humans. Published in 1962, Baldwin writes about the racial tensions of the time - desegregation, the rise of the Nation of Islam, and the entire question of race, the value of color, and journey of the African-American in this country for more than 400 years. But, the humanity at the heart of this book is timeless; it could be applied to any situation where there is the hated and the hater. There are too many quotes for me to pull, but one of my favorites is this: "in our time, as in every time, the impossible is the least that one can demand."
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
medium-paced
"I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be 'accepted' by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."
"Negroes in this country—and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other ..."
"That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church."
"And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born."
"When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all."
"It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it."
"There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun."
"The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless."
"No doubt I am guilty of some injustice here, but it is irreducible, since I cannot risk assuming that the humanity of these people is more real to them than their uniforms. Most Negroes cannot risk assuming that the humanity of white people is more real to them than their color."
"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."
" ... people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.
"And one felt that if one had had that white man’s worldly advantages, one would never have become as bewildered and as joyless and as thoughtlessly cruel as he. The Negro came to the white man for a roof or for five dollars or for a letter to the judge; the white man came to the Negro for love."
"Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality."
" ... one must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion—and the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."
"Negroes in this country—and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other ..."
"That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church."
"And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born."
"When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all."
"It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it."
"There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun."
"The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless."
"No doubt I am guilty of some injustice here, but it is irreducible, since I cannot risk assuming that the humanity of these people is more real to them than their uniforms. Most Negroes cannot risk assuming that the humanity of white people is more real to them than their color."
"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."
" ... people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.
"And one felt that if one had had that white man’s worldly advantages, one would never have become as bewildered and as joyless and as thoughtlessly cruel as he. The Negro came to the white man for a roof or for five dollars or for a letter to the judge; the white man came to the Negro for love."
"Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality."
" ... one must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion—and the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."
emotional
inspiring
slow-paced
"I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be 'accepted' by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this—which will not be tomorrow and may very well be never—the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."
"Negroes in this country—and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other ..."
"That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church."
"And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born."
"When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all."
"It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it."
"There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun."
"The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless."
"No doubt I am guilty of some injustice here, but it is irreducible, since I cannot risk assuming that the humanity of these people is more real to them than their uniforms. Most Negroes cannot risk assuming that the humanity of white people is more real to them than their color."
"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."
" ... people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.
"And one felt that if one had had that white man’s worldly advantages, one would never have become as bewildered and as joyless and as thoughtlessly cruel as he. The Negro came to the white man for a roof or for five dollars or for a letter to the judge; the white man came to the Negro for love."
"Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality."
" ... one must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion—and the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."
"Negroes in this country—and Negroes do not, strictly or legally speaking, exist in any other ..."
"That summer, in any case, all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of the world, rose up like a wall between the world and me, and drove me into the church."
"And the blood of the Lamb had not cleansed me in any way whatever. I was just as black as I had been the day that I was born."
"When we were told to love everybody, I had thought that that meant everybody. But no. It applied only to those who believed as we did, and it did not apply to white people at all."
"It will be a great day for America, incidentally, when we begin to eat bread again, instead of the blasphemous and tasteless foam rubber that we have substituted for it."
"There they stood, in twos and threes and fours, in their Cub Scout uniforms and with their Cub Scout faces, totally unprepared, as is the way with American he-men, for anything that could not be settled with a club or a fist or a gun."
"The subtle and deadly change of heart that might occur in you would be involved with the realization that a civilization is not destroyed by wicked people; it is not necessary that people be wicked but only that they be spineless."
"No doubt I am guilty of some injustice here, but it is irreducible, since I cannot risk assuming that the humanity of these people is more real to them than their uniforms. Most Negroes cannot risk assuming that the humanity of white people is more real to them than their color."
"Whoever debases others is debasing himself."
"Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to deny the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death—ought to decide, indeed, to earn one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life."
" ... people who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.
"And one felt that if one had had that white man’s worldly advantages, one would never have become as bewildered and as joyless and as thoughtlessly cruel as he. The Negro came to the white man for a roof or for five dollars or for a letter to the judge; the white man came to the Negro for love."
"Color is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality."
" ... one must be careful not to take refuge in any delusion—and the value placed on the color of the skin is always and everywhere and forever a delusion."
This book is still so important and relevant today. Decades after it was written, it's sad to see how little has changed. Baldwin's writing is thought provoking and helped me dig deeper into my beliefs and what needs to happen to improve society
challenging
informative
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
challenging
inspiring
medium-paced