White people cannot destroy me like they have other big ministers of Elijah Mohammed in the past by telling us oh, you speak good, you should be the leader.
...for thousands of years human history has been a magnificently futile conflict, a wonderfully staged panorama of triumphs and tragedies based on the resolute taboo against admitting that black goes with white.
How many cowards whose hearts are all as false As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars, Who inward searched, have livers white as milk!
I am suspicious - first of all, in myself - of adopted mysticisms of glib spirituality, above all of white people's tendency to ... vampirize American Indian, or African, or Asian, or other 'exotic' ways of understanding.
Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together But when I look ahead up the white road There is always another one walking beside you Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded I do not know whether a man or a woman -But who is that on the other side of you?
Skilled in every trick, a worthy heir of his paternal craft, he would make black look like white, and white look black.
[Lat., Furtum ingeniosus ad omne,
Qui facere assueret, patriae non degener artis,
Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra.]
Our kids grew up here [in the White House]. Some of our best friends have been made here in this place. There have been moments that were highlights for us - that - you know, are going to be hard to duplicate.