I come home that morning, after I been fired, and stood outside my house with my new work shoes on. The shoes my mama paid a month's worth a light bill for. I guess that's when I understood what shame was and the color of it too. Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
Interpretation
The quote reflects the profound feeling of shame connected to personal and familial sacrifice.
In this quote, the speaker conveys a deep understanding of shame that transcends the common conception of it as a mere feeling of guilt or embarrassment. Instead, shame is articulated through the imagery of a pristine white uniform, symbolizing the hard work and sacrifices made by the speaker's mother, and it highlights an emotional connection to one's identity and the expectations of family. This realization transforms the speaker's perception of shame into something tied to love, effort, and the weight of responsibility, rather than simply a negative emotion.
In practice
A motivational speech about hard work and the value of family sacrifices.
When I grew older and awkward, when my parents divorced and life had gone all to hell, Demetrie stood me at the wardrobe mirror and told me over and over, 'You are beautiful. You are smart. You are important.' It was an incredible gift to give a child who thinks nothing of herself.
Shame ain't black, like dirt, like I always thought it was. Shame be the color of a new white uniform your mother ironed all night to pay for, white without a smudge or a speck a work-dirt on it.
I want to yell so loud that Baby Girl can hear me that dirty ain't a color, disease ain't the Negro side a town. I want to stop that moment from coming - and it come in ever white child's life - when they start to think that colored folks ain't as good as whites. ... I pray that wasn't her moment, Pray I still got time.
...out of the blue, he kissed me. Right in the middle of the Robert E. Lee Hotel Restaurant, he kissed me so slowly with an open mouth and every single thing in my body-my skin, my collarbone, the hollow backs of my knees, everything inside of me filled up with light.
You just don't know in life. Life knocks you about and pushes you over boundaries. But be ready. Do your homework; that's all I can say.
Do not get so concerned with making a living that you forget to make a life.
A useless life is an early death.
I came from a childhood where I spent a lot of time alone and a lot of time just living with my imagination, and a certain amount of the adult world was kind of alienating.
Hope is the last thing that dies in man; and though it be exceedingly deceitful, yet it is of this good use to us, that while we are traveling through life it conducts us in an easier and more pleasant way to our journey's end.
I surrendered my youth to the people I feared when I could have been out there loving someone. Don't make that mistake yourself. Life's too damn short.
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