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
We should certainly know by now that it is one thing to overthrow a dictator or repel an invader and quite another thing really to achieve a revolution. Time and time and time again, the people discover that they have merely betrayed themselves into the hands of yet another Pharaoh, who, since he was necessary to put the broken country together, will not let them go.
Interpretation
True revolution requires more than just replacing leaders; it necessitates fundamental change in society.
James A. Baldwin highlights the difference between merely changing leadership and achieving a true revolution that transforms society. He cautions that often, in the attempt to escape from oppression, people may find themselves under new forms of tyranny, suggesting that without a deep societal shift, past struggles may lead to new oppressors rather than liberation.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about the importance of systemic change in political movements.
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.
The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I could end the deficit in 5 minutes. You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP all sitting members of congress are ineligible for reelection.
Of what does politics consist except the making of imperfect decisions, many of them unjust and quite a few of them deadly?
A politician is a man who understands government, and it takes a politician to run a government. A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.
Whatever one's religion in his private life may be, for the officeholder, nothing takes precedence over his oath to uphold the Constitution and all its parts - including the First Amendment and the strict separation of church and state.
The preeminent obstacle to peace is Israel's colonization of Palestine.
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