Second 25 Flashcards
“You mean you could forgive me for having been raped?”
Dana in an exchange with Kevin saying, “Look if anything did happen, I could understand it. I know how it was back then.” About whether or no she had been raped by Rufus (245).
“It was that destructive single-minded love of his.”
Dana on Rufus’ selfish way of loving in which he went to all lengths, even if it involved hurting the person that he loved, to keep folks that he loved near him. (180); Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred
“I can’t advise you. It’s your body.”
Dana to Alice about whether or not she should submit to Rufus (167); Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred
“Maybe I can’t eve have that – both wanting, both loving. But I’m not going to give up what I can have.”
Rufus acknowledging that he wasn’t going to give up/allow Alice to leave even if she didn’t want to be with him. (163); Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred
“There was no shame in raping a black woman, but there could be shame in loving one.”
Dana on Rufus “love” for Alice (124); Butler, Octavia. 1979. Kindred
“Some of the local brothers and sisters said ‘I can’t give up my stuff so I won’t be on the march, I’ll just be on the side.”
Hollis Watkins on the decision of some movement participants to keep their weapons…and so rather than tn marching, they literally stood on the side and provided protection. (1504 of 9381); Umoja, Akinyele. 2013. We Will Shoot Back.
We made up our minds … that if a white man shoots at a Negro in Mississippi, we will shoot back.
Title of the book comes from a speech given by Charles Evers (brother of Medgar Evers) on February 15 in 1964 at an NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet.; Umoja, Akinyele Omowale (2013-04-22). We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement (Kindle Locations 2555-2556). NYU Press. Kindle Edition.
“We need a voice like our music - one that samples and layers many voices, injects its sensibilities into the old and flips into something new, provocative, and powerful. And one whose occasional hypocrisy, contraditions, and triteness guarantee us at least a few trips to the terror-dome, forcing us to finally confront what we’d all rather hide from.”
Joan Morgan; Neal, Soul Babies, 1
“I’m always going to want to protect my right as both an intellectual and writer, to use whatever language necessary to converse and connect.”
Mark Anthony Neal on using the “N-Word” (Racialicious Interview)
“The margins are not inherently marginal…”
Larry Grossberg (from Neal, Soul Babies: 10)
“‘The margins are not inherently marginal’ or in other words, those folks whom some blacks posit as on the margins of acceptable or even relevant black life…are as integral to that experience as those who try to keep them at arm’s distance, rhetorically, spatially, or otherwise.”
Neal, Soul Babies: 10
“common sense is not critically self-conscious, and its function is to facilitate conformity and adaptation to familiar circumstances. It thrives on familiarity and fears change, and therefore common sense is profoundly conservative. Thus, paradoxically, those who wish to change the status quo must combat common sense and thereby risk acquiring the semblance of fools.”
David Lionel on Common Sense (from Neal, Soul Babies: 9)
‘Anybody can tell you that all the great soul singers learned their best licks in the choir loft, that the church is the mother of R&B and the grandmother of rack & roll. But no one can tell you the pain of having the choice between lifting up your voice for God or taking a bow for your third encore. That’s something that you have to experience for yourself. Like Sam Cooke. Like Marvin Gaye. Like Al Green.”
Al Green from his autobiography Take Me to the River
“One of the problems we must face squarely is that to attract the mass we have to produce work that not only instructs but entertains.”
Melvin Van Peebles (Neal, Soul Babies, 27).
Good writing is clear. Talented writing is energetic. Good writing avoids errors. Talented writing makes things happen in the reader’s mind — vividly, forcefully — that good writing, which stops with clarity and logic, doesn’t.
Samuel Delany (from About Writing)
