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d8a1c1f
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I was once reproved by a minister who was driving a poor beast to some meeting-house horse-sheds among the hills of New Hampshire, because I was bending my steps to a mountain-top on the Sabbath, instead of a church, when I would have gone farther than he to hear a true word spoken on that or any day. He declared that I was 'breaking the Lord's fourth commandment,' and proceeded to enumerate, in a sepulchral tone, the disasters which had befallen him whenever he had done any ordinary work on the Sabbath. He really thought that a god was on the watch to trip up those men who followed any secular work on this day, and did not see that it was the evil conscience of the workers that did it. . There are few things more disheartening and disgusting than when you are walking the streets of a strange village on the Sabbath, to hear a preacher shouting like a boatswain in a gale of wind, and thus harshly profaning the quiet atmosphere of the day.
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|
america
humor
truth
fourth-commandment
profane
the-lord
country
sabbath
profanity
new-hampshire
minister
church
secular
superstition
|
Henry David Thoreau |
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f22e784
|
Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.
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|
human-rights
righteousness
america
freedom
inspirational
stream
peace
justice
water
pride
|
Martin Luther King Jr. |
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be6fc40
|
We cannot have a world where everyone is a victim. "I'm this way because my father made me this way. I'm this way because my husband made me this way." Yes, we are indeed formed by traumas that happen to us. But then you must take charge, you must take over, you are responsible.
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|
democrat
sex
criticism
responsibility
america
inspirational
republican
victim
liberal
libertarian
art
culture
trauma
|
Camille Paglia |
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8278c6b
|
And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.
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|
war
slavery
america
us
united-states-of-america
native-americans
usa
delusions
united-states
cruelty
race-relations
theft
|
Colson Whitehead |
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5cf452e
|
Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world
|
|
america
greatest
the-newsroom
tv-series
world
life
inspirational
scene
monologue
country
|
Aaron Sorkin |
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0ab7cf9
|
You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies--the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects--are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream. The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs.
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|
racism
america
united-states-of-america
blacks
whites
police-reform
usa
united-states
race-relations
police
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
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2b649c1
|
Vietnam was a country where America was trying to make people stop being communists by dropping things on them from airplanes.
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|
america
communists
vietnam
bombs
vietnam-war
communism
|
Kurt Vonnegut |
|
e4d787d
|
If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now. Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor--if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative.
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|
slavery
america
us
united-states-of-america
white-people
possessions
native-americans
usa
united-states
ownership
race-relations
|
Colson Whitehead |
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9cba07b
|
No body wishes more than I do to see such proofs as you exhibit, that nature has given to our black brethren, talents equal to those of the other colors of men, and that the appearance of a want of them is owing merely to the degraded condition of their existence, both in Africa & America.
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|
equality
america
nature
nature-vs-nurture
|
Thomas Jefferson |
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461a814
|
There's a lot of things wrong with this country, but one of the few things still right with it is that a man can steer clear of the organized bullshit if he really wants to. It's a goddamned luxury, and if I were you, I'd take advantage of it while you can.
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|
america
independence
self
|
Hunter S. Thompson |
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5f9bad7
|
And if the word means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become.
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|
america
reality
love
us
integration
whites
usa
united-states
race-relations
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James Baldwin |
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f6a890a
|
"There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this -- which will not be tomorrow and will not be today and may very well be never -- the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed."
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|
racism
america
compassion
politics
love
white-people
african-americans
race-relations
race
|
James Baldwin |
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a16e68e
|
What America is, to me, is a guy doesn't want to buy, you let him not buy, you respect his not buying. A guy has a crazy notion different from your crazy notion, you pat him on the back and say, Hey pal, nice crazy notion, let's go have a beer. America, to me, should be shouting all the time, a bunch of shouting voices, most of them wrong, some of them nuts, but please, not just one droning glamorous reasonable voice.
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|
america
buying
craziness
purchasing
disagreement
difference
americans
|
George Saunders |
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a09a824
|
America this is quite serious
|
|
america
beat
ginsberg
|
allen ginsberg |
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8003586
|
"Because of the "city upon a hill" sound bite, " " is one of the formative documents outlining the idea of America. But dig deep into its communitarian ethos and it reads more like an America that might have been, an America fervently devoted to the quaint goals of working together and getting along. Of course, this America does exist. It's called Canada."
|
|
america
communitarianism
john-winthrop
city-on-the-hill
canada
|
Sarah Vowell |
|
d586b9d
|
We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past--at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge --that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it.
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|
racism
history
america
reparations
white-supremacy
race
democracy
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
c17b32f
|
"What we are confronted with now is the problem posed by the economic and symbolic structure of television. Those who run television do not limit our access to information but in fact widen it. Our Ministry of Culture is
|
|
aldous-huxley
television
america
politics
huxley
brave-new-world
orwell
george-orwell
society
|
Neil Postman |
|
ba97a54
|
Across the sea fat kings watched and were gleeful, that something begun so well had now gone off the rails (as down South similar kings watched), and if it went off the rails, so went the whole kit, forever, and if someone ever thought to start it up again, well, it would be said (and said truly): The rabble cannot manage itself. Well, the rabble could. The rabble would. He would lead the rabble in managing. The thing would be won.
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|
war
america
us
united-states-of-america
lincoln
usa
united-states
civil-war
victory
democracy
|
George Saunders |
|
09f209f
|
People spend their entire lives at those lower altitudes without any awareness that this high country exists.
|
|
america
get-lost
montana
wild-west
country
explore
mountains
|
Robert M. Pirsig |
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1b4e005
|
"I heard Mr. many years ago in Chicago. The hall seated 5,000 people; every inch of standing-room was also occupied; aisles and platform crowded to overflowing. He held that vast audience for three hours so completely entranced that when he left the platform no one moved, until suddenly, with loud cheers and applause, they recalled him. He returned smiling and said: 'I'm glad you called me back, as I have something more to say. Can you stand another half-hour?' 'Yes: an hour, two hours, all night,' was shouted from various parts of the house; and he talked on until midnight, with unabated vigor, to the delight of his audience. This was the greatest triumph of oratory I had ever witnessed. It was the first time he delivered his matchless speech, 'The Liberty of Man, Woman, and Child'. I have heard the greatest orators of this century in England and America; O'Connell in his palmiest days, on the Home Rule question; Gladstone and John Bright in the House of Commons; Spurgeon, James and Stopford Brooke, in their respective pulpits; our own Wendell Phillips, Henry Ward Beecher, and Webster and Clay, on great occasions; the stirring eloquence of our anti-slavery orators, both in Congress and on the platform, but none of them ever equalled in his highest flights.
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|
equality
america
liberty-of-man-woman-and-child
matchless
oratory
triumph
ingersoll
robert-g-ingersoll
robert-green-ingersoll
robert-ingersoll
chicago
praise
england
rights
smile
respect
honor
speech
delight
|
Elizabeth Cady Stanton |
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3a750d1
|
It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below of your country. It breaks too much of what we would like to think about ourselves, our lives, the world we move through and the people who surround us. The struggle to understand is our only advantage over this madness.
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|
racism
america
learning
united-states-of-america
blacks
usa
united-states
race-relations
knowledge
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
102b765
|
" ,' Dad said, 'has the sort of ellipsis ending most American audiences would rather undergo a root canal than be left with, not only because they loathe anything left to the imagination-we're talking about the country that invented spandex-but also because they are a confident, self-assured nation. They Family. They Right from Wrong. They know God-many of them attest to daily chats with the man. And the idea that none of us can truly know anything at all-not the lives of our friends or family, not even ourselves-is a thought they'd rather be shot in the arm with their own semi-automatic rifle than face head-on. Personally, I think there's something terrific about not knowing, relinquishing man's feeble attempt to control. When you throw up your hands, say, "Who knows?" you can get on with the sheer gift of being alive." --
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|
america
family
god
ambiguous-ending
foreign-film
ambiguity
endings
control
americans
right-and-wrong
|
Marisha Pessl |
|
0264512
|
After September 11th, I never much liked the trend of everyone and his brother wearing the hats and jackets of the NYPD and FDNY. Only the people who do the job should get to wear the hat. Would you wear someone else's Medal of Honor? Yes, it's a tribute, and sincere tribute is always appropriate for these brave people. But wearing their symbols is also rubbing off a piece of heroism that isn't yours.
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|
heroes
heroism
america
war-on-terror
patriotism
|
Bill Maher |
|
1d1b76d
|
The ancient paused for a moment, as if his strength were failing. Yet I sensed that there was more to tell. Looking deep into my eyes, he whispered: 'The Gond kingdoms have fallen, their people live dispersed in poverty: the teak trees and the jungles have been cleared... but the importance of the Gonds must not be forgotten!
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|
myth
india
travel
america
gondwana
geography
|
Tahir Shah |
|
a0a45bf
|
What this means is not a single Tower of Babel plotted in common, but hundreds of thousands of separate beginnings, the length and breadth of America. Energetic people who build against pains and uncertainties, as weaker ones merely hope against them.
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|
america
origins
|
Saul Bellow |
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46386de
|
Perhaps it now occurs to him that in this need to establish himself in his relation to his past [the African American] is most American, that this depthless alienation from oneself and one's people is, in sum, the American experience.
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|
history
america
blacks
race-relations
race
|
James Baldwin |
|
5307ec8
|
Any fair consideration of the depth and width of enslavement tempts insanity. First conjure the crime--the generational destruction of human bodies--and all of its related offenses--domestic terrorism, poll taxes, mass incarceration. But then try to imagine being an individual born among the remnants of that crime, among the wronged, among the plundered, and feeling the gravity of that crime all around and seeing it in the sideways glances of the perpetrators of that crime and overhearing it in their whispers and watching these people, at best, denying their power to address the crime and, at worst, denying that any crime had occurred at all, even as their entire lives revolve around the fact of a robbery so large that it is written in our very names. This is not a thought experiment. America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to a plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered.
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|
slavery
history
america
whiteness
american-history
race-relations
race
exploitation
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
c1e303f
|
The earthquake cannot be subpoenaed. The typhoon will not bend under indictment. They sent the killer of Prince Jones back to his work, because he was not a killer at all. He was a force of nature, the helpless agent of our world's physical laws.
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|
violence
racism
america
politics
|
Ta-Nehisi Coates |
|
c38eac9
|
"It is interesting that a guy like W.E.B. Du Bois, who actually did very little, I should imagine, with his hands, wrote about "I am the smoke king." Without the labor, both free and slave, of African Americans this country would still be a wilderness."
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|
america
poetry
us
w-e-b-du-bois
usa
labor
united-states
race-relations
race
|
Nikki Giovanni |