Telling me that I’m obsessed with talking about racism in America is like telling me I’m obsessed with swimming when I’m drowning.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of addressing pressing social issues rather than dismissing them as obsessions.
Hari Kondabolu uses the metaphor of drowning to illustrate that discussing racism in America is not an obsession but a necessary response to a dire situation. Just as one must address the immediate threat of drowning, society must confront the pervasive and harmful realities of racism rather than ignore them. The quote challenges the dismissal of important conversations as mere fixation.
In practice
In a discussion about social justice at a community meeting.
We have all been hearing from childhood of such things as love, peace, charity, equality, and universal brotherhood; but they have become to us mere words without meaning, words which we repeat like parrots, and it has become quite natural for us to do so. We cannot help it.
I have known many meat eaters to be far more nonviolent than vegetarians.
Every sensation shares the same characteristic: it arises and passes away, arises and passes away. It is this arising and passing that we have to experience through practice, not just accept as truth because Buddha said so, not just accept because intellectually it seems logical enough to us. We must experience sensation’s nature, understand its flux, and learn not to react to it.
There are slavish souls who carry their appreciation for favors done them so far that they strangle themselves with the rope of gratitude.
One man's justice is another's injustice; one man's beauty another's ugliness; one man's wisdom anpther's folly.
Make me an instrument of thy peace.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.