“The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Government
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“There has never been in history another such culture as the Western civilization M a culture which has practiced the belief that the physical and social environment of man is subject to rational manipulation and that history is subject to the will and action of man; whereas central to the traditional cultures of the rivals of Western civilization, those of Africa and Asia, is a belief that it is environment that dominates man.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: History
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“In the middle of the next century, when the literary establishment will reflect the multicultural makeup of this country and not be dominated by assimiliationists with similar tastes, from similar backgrounds, and of similar pretensions, Langston Hughes will be to the twentieth century what Walt Whitman was to the nineteenth.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: History
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“The last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes–McCarthy and Stalin–that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Art
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“Free enterprise is not a bad idea and has produced art.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Art
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“We not only grew up on Be-Bop; Be-Bop raised us. For my generation, Be-Bop came on like a light bulb going flash behind the eyes.For us, it was not only an intellectual movement, but a way of life. We walked, dressed, and rapped Be-Bop.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Music
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“The treatment of African and African American culture in our education was no different from their treatment in Tarzan movies.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“For Afro-Americans, it could be argued that every year they’ve spent in this country since they arrived in chains to perform forced labor has been 1984.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“The Afrocentric exploration of the black past only scratches the surface. A full examination of the ancestry of those who are referred to in the newspapers as blacks and African Americans must include Europe and Native America.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency–indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman–but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so–called educational system, whichis nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one’s ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the “educational system” are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“I’ve always wondered why European politicians as a group seemed brighter than American politicians as a group. Maybe it’s becausemany American politicians have the race issue to fall back on. They become lazy, suspicious of innovative ideas, and as a result American institutions atrophy.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
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“American cultural institutions seem so bent on preserving the values of “Western civilization,” the mythical “Whitetown,” that welearn about one another’s cultures the same way we learn about sex: in the streets.”
Ishmael Reed
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Race
