You Cannot Fix What You Will Not

I Remember Standing On A Street Corner With The Black Painter Beauford Delaney Down In The Village, Waiting For The Light To Change, And He Pointed Down And Said, 'look.' I Looked And All I Saw Was Water. And He Said, 'look Again,' Which I Did, And I Saw Oil On The Water And The City Reflected In The Puddle. It Was A Great Revelation To Me. I Can't Explain It. He Taught Me How To See, And How To Trust What I Saw. Painters Have Often Taught Writers How To See. And Once You've Had That Experience, You See Differently.

People Who Shut Their Eyes To Reality Simply Invite Their Own Destruction, And Anyone Who Insists On Remaining In A State On Innocence Long After That Innocence Is Dead Turns Himself Into A Monster.

It Is A Very Rare Man Who Does Not Victimize The Helpless.

For Nothing Is Fixed, Forever And Forever, It Is Not Fixed; The Earth Is Always Shifting, The Light Is Always Changing, The Sea Does Not Cease To Grind Down Rock. Generations Do Not Cease To Be Born, And We Are Responsible To Them Because We Are The Only Witnesses They Have. The Sea Rises, The Light Fails, Lovers Cling To Each Other And Children Cling To Us. The Moment We Cease To Hold Each Other, The Moment We Break Faith With One Another, The Sea Engulfs Us And The Light Goes Out.

The Relatively Conscious Whites And The Relatively Conscious Blacks, Who Must, Like Lovers, Insist On, Or Create, The Consciousness Of The Others In Order To End The Racial Nightmare And Acheive Our Country.