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
Nakedness has no color: this can come as news only to those who have never covered, or been covered by, another naked human being.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nakedness transcends racial and cultural differences, revealing our common humanity.
In this quote, Baldwin emphasizes the idea that our most vulnerable state, represented by nakedness, is devoid of the societal constructs of race and color. Only those who have not experienced true connection with others can fail to understand that at our core, we share the same humanity, regardless of external differences.
Themes
NakednessHumanityRaceConnectionVulnerability
In practice
Example use cases
During a presentation on racial equality, this quote can illustrate the idea that our shared human experience transcends superficial differences.
More from James A. Baldwin
All quotes βThe white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.
James A. BaldwinRead
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.
James A. BaldwinRead
Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.
James A. BaldwinRead
The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.
James A. BaldwinRead
The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
James A. BaldwinRead
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For pain words are lacking. There should be cries, cracks, fissures, whiteness passing over chintz covers, interference with the sense of time, of space ; the sense also of extreme fixity in passing objects ; and sounds very remote and then very close ; flesh being gashed and blood sparting, a joint suddenly twisted - beneath all of which appears something very important, yet remote, to be just held in solitude.β β Virginia Woolf, The Waves
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All of us are made up of the stories that we listen to, the ones we disagree with and the ones that we agree with.
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Life is thickly sown with thorns. I know no other remedy than to pass rapidly over them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes the greater is their power to harm us.
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