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
Yet I also suspected that what I was seeing was but a part of the truth and perhaps not even the most important part; beneath these faces, these clothes, accents, rudenesses, was power and sorrow, both unadmitted, unrealized, the power of inventors, the sorrow of the disconnected.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the idea that human interactions often hide deeper truths of power and sorrow.
James A. Baldwin's quote suggests that the superficial aspects of people's identities, such as their appearances and behaviors, may obscure profound underlying emotions and struggles. The mention of power and sorrow emphasizes the complexity of human experiences, hinting at the disconnect that can occur when these deeper truths remain unacknowledged.
Themes
TruthPowerSorrowHuman ExperienceIdentity
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about social dynamics, one could say, 'As James A. Baldwin suggests, beneath our interactions lies deeper power and sorrow.'
More from James A. Baldwin
All quotes →The 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
Similar quotes
Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country; emotionally I know she is better than every other country.
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Perhaps the real point of life is simply to wear us down until we have no choice but to start abandoning our defenses. We learn that the way things are is simply the way they are meant to be right now, and then, suddenly, at long last, we catch a glimpse of the abundance in the moment--abundance even in the face of things falling apart.
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In our household, the Bible, the Koran and the Bhagavad Gita sat on the shelf alongside books of Greek and Norse and African mythology
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And in that line now was a whiskered old man, with a linen cap and a crooked nose, who waited in a place called the Stardust Band Shell to share his part of the secret of heaven: that each affects the other and the other affects the next, and the world is full of stories, but the stories are all one.
Mitch AlbomRead
As with all journeys, the Way has an end, though it should not be imagined as a straight road leading to a fixed destination but rather as a majestic mountain whose peak conceals the presence of God. There are, of course, many paths to the summit-some better than others. But because every path eventually leads to the same destination, which path one takes is irrelevant.
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Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered. I myself would say that it had merely been detected.
Oscar WildeRead