We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
James Weldon JohnsonRead
There are a great many colored people who are ashamed of the cake-walk, but I think they ought to be proud of it.
Interpretation
The cake-walk, a dance with origins in African American culture, should be a source of pride rather than shame.
James Weldon Johnson's quote highlights the importance of embracing cultural heritage, suggesting that rather than feeling shame for their traditions or expressions, people should take pride in them. The cake-walk, with its roots in African American history, represents resilience and creativity, and Johnson argues for a positive acknowledgment of such cultural expressions as vital to identity and history.
In practice
During a cultural festival, I shared this quote to encourage attendees to take pride in their heritage.
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered, We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
O Black and unknown bards of long ago, How came your lips to touch the sacred fire?
The battle was first waged over the right of the Negro to be classed as a human being with a soul; later, as to whether he had sufficient intellect to master even the rudiments of learning; and today it is being fought out over his social recognition.
I believe it to be a fact that the colored people of this country know and understand the white people better than the white people know and understand them.
It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree.
Southern white people despise the Negro as a race, and will do nothing to aid in his elevation as such; but for certain individuals they have a strong affection, and are helpful to them in many ways.
African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
Looting has an immense impact on our ability to understand our global cultural heritage; once these objects are gone, so too is our chance of piecing together humanity's shared story.
If we learn anything from the history of economic development, it is that culture makes all the difference.
Culture is public, because meaning is
Underground people pay a desperate toll finding out things nobody else has discovered yet. We run around like headless chickens looking for the next cultural fix to spiral around in before it gets appropriated somewhere else and becomes something it never was. There's this sort of one-upmanship in the underground.
A new culture can only grow up in the soil of a purged humanity.
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