To Rescue Our Children We Will Have

In America, The Traditional Routes To Black Identity Have Hardly Been Normal. Suicide (disappearance By Imitation, Or Willed Extinction), Violence (hysterical Religiosity, Crime, Armed Revolt), And Exemplary Moral Courage; None Of These Is Normal.

And If I If I Ever Let Love Go Because The Hatred And The Whisperings Become A Phantom Dictate I O- Bey In Lieu Of Impulse And Realities (the Blossoming Flamingos Of My Wild Mimosa Trees) Then Let Love Freeze Me Out. (from I Must Become A Menace To My Enemies)

All Of Western Tradition, From The Late Bloom Of The British Empire Right Through The Early Doom Of Vietnam, Dictates That You Do Something Spectacular And Irreversible Whenever You Find Yourself In Or Whenever You Impose Yourself Upon A Wholly Unfamiliar Situation Belonging To Somebody Else. Frequently It's Your Soul Or Your Honor Or Your Manhood, Or Democracy Itself, At Stake.

As A Child I Was Taught That To Tell The Truth Was Often Painful. As An Adult I Have Learned That Not To Tell The Truth Is More Painful, And That The Fear Of Telling The Truth - Whatever The Truth May Be - That Fear Is The Most Painful Sensation Of A Moral Life.

I Am A Stranger, Learning To Love The Strangers Around Me