It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.
James A. BaldwinRead
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
Interpretation
American history is complex and multifaceted, filled with beauty and horror that surpasses any narrative about it.
James A. Baldwin's quote highlights the intricate nature of American history, suggesting that it encompasses a vast range of experiences and realities that are often oversimplified or inadequately expressed. He emphasizes that its complexity makes it challenging to capture the full essence of the American story, which is both beautiful and terrible, reflecting the duality of human experience.
In practice
This quote could be used in a discussion about the importance of understanding the depths of American history during a history class.
It is dangerous to be an American Negro male. America has never wanted its Negroes to be men, and does not, generally, treat them as men. It treats them as mascots, pets, or things.
The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.
Those kids aren't dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don't get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.
The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.
The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
One thing that struck me in my study of history is how people are excluded. I don't mean just racial minorities or women. Pretty much all poor people who don't have documents are excluded from history and its records. People who were illiterate usually didn't leave any primary documents.
Can any one be so indifferent or idle as not to care to know by what means, and under what kind of polity, almost the whole inhabited world was conquered and_x000D_ brought under the dominion of the single city of Rome, and that too within a period of not quite fifty-three years?
America had often been discovered before Columbus, but it had always been hushed up.
The world must know what happened, and never forget.
History is not history unless it is the truth.
After Nixon resigned in 1974, he engaged in a very aggressive war with history, attempting to wipe out the Watergate stain and memory. Happily, history won, largely because of Nixon's tapes.
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