Next, 'real' is what we may call a trouser-word. It is usually thought, and I dare say usually rightly thought, that what one migh...t call the affirmative use of a term is basic--that, to understand 'x,' we need to know what it is to be x, or to be an x, and that knowing this apprises us of what it is not to be x, not to be an x. But with 'real' (as we briefly noted earlier) it is the negative use that wears the trousers.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
For mainstream American blacks, the vast majority of churches have Hebrew names--Ebenezer, Mount Zion, Canaan, Mount Moriah, Taber...nacle, New Hebron, Mount Olive. Hebraic traditions run deep in the black church. More than any people on earth, including the Jews, American blacks have adopted the Mosaic model of social organization, with the exalted political prophet bonded to the "children of Israel" below. Blacks and Jews have in common a history of cyclical swings between cultural separatism and assimilation. Black Zionists helped establish an independent Liberia in 1847, some fifty years before the emergence of modern Jewish Zionism. Jews, who have canonized no new prophets in two millennia and who shudder at the memory of their false messiahs, look with both longing and horror upon the last generation's procession of black prophets: Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Louis Farrakhan, and Jesse Jackson. Depending on one's prediction of the outcome, blacks and Jews are either intimate enemies or quarrelsome cousins.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
One who has not only the four S's, which are required in every good lover, but even the whole alphabet; as for example ... Agreeab...le, Bountiful, Constant, Dutiful, Easy, Faithful, Gallant, Honourable, Ingenious, Kind, Loyal, Mild, Noble, Officious, Prudent, Quiet, Rich, Secret, True, Valiant, Wise; the X indeed, is too harsh a letter to agree with him, but he is Young and Zealous.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If a man like Malcolm X could change and repudiate racism, if I myself and other former Muslims can change, if young whites can ch...ange, then there is hope for America.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Sex is two plus two making five, rather than four. Sex is the X ingredient that you can't define, and it's that X ingredient betwe...en two people that make both a man and a woman good in bed. It's all relative. There are no rules.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The fox, he felt, had never seen his past disposed of like a fall of water. He had never measured off his day in moments: another-...-another--another. But now, thrown down so deeply in himself, into the darkness of the well, surprised by pain and hunger, might he not revert to an earlier condition, regain capacities which formerly were useless to him, pass from animal to Henry, become human in his prison, X his days, count, wait, listen for another--another--another--another?LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In many ways chess ... is very like philosophy. Both have long histories which most practitioners are aware of and frequently cons...ult. The chess master is just as likely to be found replaying the past games of Morphy and Capablanca as the modern philosopher is to be found rehearsing the arguments of Descartes and Kant. Further, chess games, like philosophical problems, can often be sufficiently complex to defy complete analysis. It has been calculated that after only two full moves 71,852 legal positions can be reached, while the number of distinct forty-move games is the colossal figure of 25 x 10115. Chess is also similar to philosophy in possessing a number of long-standing unsolved problems. There is for white, however expert, no opening which will guarantee victory, and no response from black which can be relied upon to preserve him from defeat.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
X said disparagingly that nothing would remain of me but a few good jokes. That, at least, would be something, but unfortunately n...ot even that will remain, for the few good jokes were stolen long ago--by X.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If we became students of Malcolm X, we would not have young black men out there killing each other like they're killing each other... now. Young black men would not be impregnating young black women at the rate going on now. We'd not have the drugs we have now, or the alcoholism.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »