Those who came to the United States didn't realize they were white until they got here. They were told they were white. They had to learn they were white. An Irish peasant coming from British imperial abuse in Ireland during the potato famine in the 1840s, arrives in the United States. You ask him or her what they are. They say, "I am Irish." No, you're white. "What do you mean, I am white?" And they point me out. "Oh, I see what you mean. This is a strange land."
Interpretation
The quote explores the concept of racial identity and how it is socially constructed in different contexts.
Cornel West highlights the experience of immigrants in the United States who, upon arrival, were made aware of their racial identity as 'white' despite having previously identified primarily with their ethnic backgrounds. This revelation underscores how racial categorizations are not inherently understood but are imposed by societal structures, transforming personal identity in the context of a new environment.
In practice
This quote could be used in a lecture about immigration and identity.
King's response to our crisis can be put in one word: revolution. A revolution in our priorities, a reevaluation of our values, a reinvigoration of our public life and a fundamental transformation of our way of thinking and living that promotes a transfer of power from oligarchs and plutocrats to everyday people and ordinary citizens.
You've got to love yourself enough, not only so that others will be able to love you, but that you'll be able to love others.
Profound music leads us beyond language...to the dark roots of our scream and the celestial heights of our silence.
And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.
Clever gimmicks of mass distraction yield a cheap soulcraft of addicted and self-medicated narcissists.
I feel as if I have been blessed to undergo a transformation from 'gangster' to 'redeemed sinner with gangster proclivities.'
The Creator, in taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery His presence in every atom of creation, could have had but one motive - a sensitive desire that men seek Him only through free will.
Job endured everything - until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
That what appears to be egoism so often isn't.
In that moment Ged understood the singing of the bird, and the language of the water falling in the basin of the fountain, and the shape of the clouds, and the beginning and end of the wind that stirred the leaves; it seemed to him that he himself was a word spoken by the sunlight.
Sometimes we find ourselves walking through life blindfolded, and we try to deny that we're the ones who securely tied the knot.
Be ahead of all parting, as though it already were behind you.
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