Animals can communicate quite well. And they do. And generally speaking, they are ignored
Alice WalkerRead
One white man on the platform in South Carolina asked us where we were going--we had got off the train to get some fresh air and to dust the grit and dust out of our clothes. When we said Africa he looked offended and tickled too. Niggers going to Africa, he said to his wife. Now I have seen everything.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects the unexpected reactions to the aspirations and identity of Black individuals seeking their roots.
Alice Walker's quote captures a moment of surprise and incredulity experienced by a white man in South Carolina upon learning that Black individuals desired to return to Africa. This interaction highlights the complex societal attitudes towards race and cultural identity, revealing a tension between aspiration and the prevailing prejudices of the time. Walker's words suggest not only the desire for connection to one's heritage but also the shock it can provoke in those unaccustomed to such aspirations.
Themes
AfricaIdentityHeritageRaceAspiration
In practice
Example use cases
This quote is powerful to share during a discussion about race and identity.
More from Alice Walker
All quotes →June Jordan, who died of cancer in 2002, was a brilliant, fierce, radical, and frequently furious poet. We were friends for thirty years. Not once in that time did she step back from what was transpiring politically and morally in the world. She spoke up, and led her students, whom she adored, to do the same.
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I think 'The Color Purple' is so bursting with love, the need for connection, the showing of the need for connection around the globe.
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How long will it take the citizens of the United States, one wonders, to recognize that the house their country bombed in Iraq is the same one they were living in until it was foreclosed?
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I think we have to own the fears that we have of each other, and then, in some practical way, some daily way, figure out how to see people differently than the way we were brought up to.
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