556 books
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955 voters
Hridesh Raj
https://www.goodreads.com/hrdshraj
He knew his weaknesses and was not afraid to admit to them. But, he was also aware of his strengths and wouldn’t hesitate to employ them.
“So many black families spend all of their time trying to fix the problems of the past. That is the curse of being black and poor, and it is a curse that follows you from generation to generation. My mother calls it “the black tax.” Because the generations who came before you have been pillaged, rather than being free to use your skills and education to move forward, you lose everything just trying to bring everyone behind you back up to zero.”
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
“And, finally, for bringing me into this world and making me the man I am today, I owe the greatest debt, a debt I can never repay, to my mother.”
― Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
“What I do remember, what I will never forget, is the violence that followed. The triumph of democracy over apartheid is sometimes called the Bloodless Revolution. It is called that because very little white blood was spilled. Black blood ran in the streets. As”
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
“I often meet people in the West who insist that the Holocaust was the worst atrocity in human history, without question. Yes, it was horrific. But I often wonder, with African atrocities like in the Congo, how horrific were they? The thing Africans don’t have that Jewish people do have is documentation. The Nazis kept meticulous records, took pictures, made films. And that’s really what it comes down to. Holocaust victims count because Hitler counted them. Six million people killed. We can all look at that number and rightly be horrified. But when you read through the history of atrocities against Africans, there are no numbers, only guesses. It’s harder to be horrified by a guess. When Portugal and Belgium were plundering Angola and the Congo, they weren’t counting the black people they slaughtered. How many black people died harvesting rubber in the Congo? In the gold and diamond mines of the Transvaal? So in Europe and America, yes, Hitler is the Greatest”
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
“The first thing I learned about having money was that it gives you choices. People don’t want to be rich. They want to be able to choose. The richer you are, the more choices you have. That is the freedom of money.”
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
― Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood
Hridesh’s 2025 Year in Books
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