7 books
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5 voters
“Given racism's critical role in providing an outlet for white frustrations caused by economic exploitation and political manipulation, one wonders whether American society could survive as we know it if large numbers of whites ever realized what racism costs them and decided to do something about it.”
― Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform
― Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform
“My parents were typical of many who drilled into me at an early age that because you are black, you have to be twice as good to get half as much. Unspoken in that advice is that whites are presumed competent until they prove the contrary. Blacks are assumed to be mediocre and certainly no intellectual match for whites until their skills and accomplishments gain them an often-reluctant acceptance.”
― Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform
― Silent Covenants: Brown v. Board of Education and the Unfulfilled Hopes for Racial Reform
“We all have doors inside us that should never be opened. God help us all when we find the keys to unlock them.”
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“Every key belongs to a lock, and every lock contains a secret. My mind churns for the truth that you hold. Why are you here? I never desired this for you, yet I am curious to know. Is this idle gaud the answer I seek, or is it merely the old memory of a dream I thought I once lived?”
― Lunora and the Monster King
― Lunora and the Monster King
“White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, “white people” would cease to exist for want of reasons. There will surely always be people with straight hair and blue eyes, as there have been for all history. But some of these straight-haired people with blue eyes have been “black,” and this points to the great difference between their world and ours. We did not choose our fences. They were imposed on us by Virginia planters obsessed with enslaving as many Americans as possible. They are the ones who came up with a one-drop rule that separated the “white” from the “black,” even if it meant that their own blue-eyed sons would live under the lash. The result is a people, black people, who embody all physical varieties and whose life stories mirror this physical range. Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself.”
― Between the World and Me
― Between the World and Me
Leslie’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Leslie’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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