Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
I think that wealthy white people would like to have a country that resembles the Fifties, when all the minorities were tucked away in ghettos and paid in very low wages but on the surface it was very bright and shiny and free and the rest of the world would look on it longingly.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote critiques the desire of some to return to a past era marked by oppression and inequality for minorities.
Alice Walker's quote highlights the nostalgia that wealthy white individuals may feel for the 1950s, a time perceived as prosperous and idyllic but built on systemic racism and economic exploitation of minorities. It underscores the contrast between surface-level appearances and the harsh realities faced by marginalized communities, pointing to a troubling desire to revert to a past that is morally questionable.
Themes
InequalityNostalgiaRacismOppressionHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social justice, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of recognizing historical inequalities.
More from Alice Walker
All quotes →June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
Alice WalkerRead
On a spiritual level, it's as though with my sighted eye I see what's before me, and with my unsighted eye I see what's hidden. It's illuminated life more than darkened it.
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I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
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How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
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One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
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