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
There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
Interpretation
Being truly despicable involves showing disdain for the suffering of others.
In this quote, James A. Baldwin highlights the various ways in which individuals can act poorly, but emphasizes that the most egregious form of contempt is to disregard or belittle the pain experienced by others. This idea suggests a moral obligation to empathize with and support those who are suffering, rather than turning a blind eye or exhibiting disdain for their struggles.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about social justice and the importance of compassion.
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.
The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.
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.
Experience, which destroys innocence, also leads one back to it.
The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.
The trick is to love somebody.... If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.
The individual can maintain himself in a society definitely organized only through possessing an equally definite mental and moral constitution. This is what the neuropath lacks. His state of disturbance causes him to be constantly taken by surprise by circumstances.
For there is but one essential justice which cements society, and one law which establishes this justice. This law is right reason, which is the true rule of all commandments and prohibitions. Whoever neglects this law, whether written or unwritten, is necessarily unjust and wicked.
Everything that happens today is like something in the past, but it's also unlike things in the past. We never know until an event happens if it's the similarities or differences that matter more.
What a powerful thing to know: That one's own desires are mappable onto strangers; that what one finds in oneself will most certainly be found in The Other.
God is Love, we are taught as children to believe. But when we first begin to get some inkling of how He loves us, we are repelled; it seems so cold, indeed, not love at all as we understand the word.
One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the fraction must have been much smaller. This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of culture.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.