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 »
Disagreement produces debate but dissent produces dissension. Dissent (which come from the Latin, dis and sentire) means originall...y to feel apart from others. People who disagree have an argument, but people who dissent have a quarrel. People may disagree and both may count themselves in the majority. But a person who dissents is by definition in a minority. A liberal society thrives on disagreement but is killed by dissension. Disagreement is the life blood of democracy, dissension is its cancer.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 »
... when a great burly six feet of masculinity with sloping shoulders and unkempt beard swaggers in, and, throwing a roll of tobac...co into one corner of his jaw, growls out at me over the paper I am reading, "Here gurl," (I am past thirty) "you better git out 'n dis kyar 'f yer don't, I'll put yer out"Mmy mental annotation is Here's an American citizen who has been badly trained. He is sadly lacking in both "sweetness" and "light" ...LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In dis world dey's many folks think dey's alive as ain't alive. Dey's alive accordin' to de whited sepulchers o' de world and dead... accordin' to de sperits o' de prophets. It's dem dey ought to cart away in hearses, brethren! It's dem dat's felt tingle within 'em de breath o' de Lawd, like a bird, like a maukin' in de woods, a song full o' warm honey, and all de same ain't follered de call, but has carried deir sperits in a hearse at de end o' de parade of de pomp o' de world. Hit's dem dat dade! Hit's dem dat's dade!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 »