the price of the ticket
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notes/quotes:
xiv
intro – the price of the ticket
part of the price of the black ticket is involved – fatally – with the dream of becoming white.
this is not possible, partly because white people are not white: part of the price of the white ticket is to delude themselves into believing that they are
xvii
i am really saying something very simple.. there was not then nor is there now a single american institution which is not a racist institution. and racist institutions – the unions.. the church, the army.. are meant to keep the nigger in his place..
those people who have opted for being white congratulate themselves on their generous ability to return to the slave that freedom which they never had any right to endanger, much less take away. for this dubious effort, and still more dubious achievement, the congratulate themselves and expect to be congratulated; in the coin, furthermore , of black gratitude, gratitude not only that my burden is (slowly, but it takes time).. being made lighter but my joy that white people are improving..
xviii
a multitude is, i suppose, by defn, an anonymous group of people bound or driven together by fears (i wrote ‘tears’) and hopes and needs which no individual member could face or articulate alone..
xix
these ideas do not come from the mob. they come from the state, which creates and manipulates the mob. the idea of a black persons as property.. for ie.. not from mob.. not a spontaneous idea. it does not come from the people, who knew better, who thought nothing of intermarriage until they were penalized for it: this idea comes from the architects of the american state.
these architects decided that the concept of property was more important -more real- than the possibilities of the human being..t
to do your first works over means to reexamine everything. go back to where you started, or as far back as you can, examine all of it, travel your road agains and tell the truth about it.. sing/shout/testify or keep it to yourself; but know when you came.
this is precisely what the generality of white americans cannot afford to do.. they do not know how to do it..
later, in the midnight hour, the missing id aches.. t
181
it is simply not possible for one person to define another. those who try soon find themselves trapped in their own definitions.. t
184
the principal effect of our material well-being has been to set the children’s teeth on edge
185
one of my brothers, in uniform, had had his front teeth kicked out by a white officer. i remembered my mother telling us how she had wept and prayed and tried to kiss the venom out of her suicidally embittered son.. (she managed to do it too, heaven only knows what she herself was feeling, whose father and brothers had lived and died down here) i remembered myself as a very small boy, already so bitter about the pledge of allegiance that i could scarcely bring myself to say it, and never, never believed it..t
234
no one in the world – in the entire world – knows more – knows americans better or , odd as this may sound, loves them more than the american negro. this is because he has had to watch you, outwit you , deal with you, and bear you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us , black and white, got here – and this is a a wedding. whether i like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. we are part of each other. t what is happening to every negro in the country at any time is also happening to you. there is not way around this. i am suggesting that these walls – these artificial walls – which have been up so long to protect us from something we fear, must come down, i think that what we really have to do is to create a country in which there are no minoritiest – for the first time in the history of the world.
235
majorities had nothing to do w numbers or with power, but with influence, with moral influence, and i want to suggest this: that the majority for which everyone is seeking which must reassess and release us form our past and deal with the present and create standards worthy of what a man may be – this majority is you.t no one else can do it. the world is before you and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in..t
315
perhaps the primary distinction of the artist is that he must actively cultivate that state which most men, necessarily, must avoid: the state of being alone.. t
be alone .. self-talk as data.. as/for the day
most of us are not compelled to linger with the knowledge of our aloneness, for it is a knowledge that can paralyze all action in this world. there are, forever, swamps to be drained, cities to be created, mines to be exploited, children to be fed. none of these thing scan be done alone. but he conquest of the physical world is not man’s only duty. he is also enjoined to conquer the great wilderness of himself. the precise role of the artist, then, is to illuminate that darkness, blaze roads thru that vast forest, so that we will not, in all our doing, lose sight of its purpose, which is, after all, to make the world a more human dwelling place..t
316
it is for this reason that all societies have battled with that incorrigible disturber of the peace – the artist..
when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition, the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will be most unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it. they do not know how they will live w/o those traditions that have given them their id. t
their reactions… when suggested they can or must, is panic.. and a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing human damage..t
self-talk as data]
the artist is distinguished from all other responsible actors in society – politicians, legislators, educators, and scientists – by the fact that he is his own test tube, his on lab, working according to very rigorous rules, however unstated these may be, and cannot allow any consideration to supersede his responsibility to reveal all that he can possibly discover concerning the mystery of the human being.. t
artist: action/achievement rests on things unseen… nothing stable.. cannot and must not take anything for granted.. drive to heart of every answer and expose question the answer hides..
317
i believe that if we understood ourselves better, we would damage ourselves less..t
but the barrier between oneself and one’s knowledge of oneself is high indeed…
the nation is healthiest which has the least necessity to distrust or ostracize or victimize these people – whom, as i say, we honor, once they are gone, because somewhere in our hearts we know that we cannot live w/o them..
318
societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover’s war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation to make freedom real
imagine 7 bn as artists.. eudaimoniative surplus.. as our freedom dance..
686
the object of one’s hatred is never, alas, conveniently outside but is seated on one’s lap, stirring in one’s bowels and dictating the beat of one’s heart. and if one does not know this, one risks becoming an imitation – and, therefore, a continuation – of principles one imagines oneself to despise.. t
687
perhaps we were all much relieved to have got beyond the obscenity of color..
688
it seemed to me that anyone who thought seriously that i had any desire to be ‘adjusted’ to this society had to be ill; too ill, certainly, as time was to prove, to be trusted..t
i sensed, then, w/o being able to articulate it – that this dependence on a formula for safety, for that is what it was, signaled a desperate moral abdiction (release of responsibility). . t
measuring things ness
689
freaks are called freaks and are treated as they are treated – in the main, abominably – because they are human beings who cause to echo, deep w/in us, our most profound terrors and desires..
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be you. 