There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.
Henry Louis GatesRead
Learning to sing one's own songs, to trust the particular cadences of own's voices, is also the goal of any writer.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of finding and expressing one's unique voice as a writer.
Henry Louis Gates highlights that the essence of writing is not just about technique but also about authenticity. Learning to embrace and convey one's individual perspectives and experiences through writing is crucial for any author aiming to resonate with readers and convey genuine emotions.
In practice
In a writing workshop, this quote could inspire participants to focus on their personal narratives.
There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery.
It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that.
In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.
The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment.
The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again.
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.
Advice to young writers wo want to get ahead without any annoying delays: don't write about Man, write about a man.
The biggest job we have is to teach a newly hired employee how to fail intelligently. We have to train him to experiment over and over and to keep on trying and failing until he learns what will work.
What's wrong with our children? Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating. Adults telling children to not be violent while marketing and glorifying violence... I believe that adult hypocrisy is the biggest problem children face in America.
What we can do is provide the tools, through our educational system, for people to be able to tell sense from nonsense. These tools include the scientific method, skeptical questioning, empirical evidence, verifying sources, etc.
The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.
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