I Want The World To Recognize With

Introducing Someone As A "negro Poet With A University Degree" Or Again, Quite Simply, The Expression, "a Great Black Poet." These Ready-made Phrases, Which Seem In A Common-sense Way To Fill A Need-or Have A Hidden Subtlety, A Permanent Rub.

Every Colonized People-in Other Words, Every People In Whose Soul An Inferiority Complex Has Been Created By The Death And Burial Of Its Local Cultural Originality-finds Itself Face To Face With The Language Of The Civilizing Nation; That Is, With The Culture Of The Mother Country. The Colonized Is Elevated Above His Jungle Status In Proportion To His Adoption Of The Mother Country's Cultural Standards.

Today I Believe In The Possibility Of Love; That Is Why I Endeavor To Trace Its Imperfections, Its Perversions.

And It Is Clear That In The Colonial Countries The Peasants Alone Are Revolutionary, For They Have Nothing To Lose And Everything To Gain. The Starving Peasant, Outside The Class System Is The First Among The Exploited To Discover That Only Violence Pays. For Him There Is No Compromise, No Possible Coming To Terms; Colonization And Decolonization A Simply A Question Of Relative Strength.

I Ascribe A Basic Importance To The Phenomenon Of Language. To Speak Means To Be In A Position To Use A Certain Syntax, To Grasp The Morphology Of This Or That Language, But It Means Above All To Assume A Culture, To Support The Weight Of A Civilization.