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9b2b427
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God is the color of water. Water doesn't have a color.
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religion
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James McBride |
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e6f7636
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I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!"
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James McBride |
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a5a1572
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It was always so hot, and everyone was so polite, and everything was all surface but underneath it was like a bomb waiting to go off. I always felt that way about the South, that beneath the smiles and southern hospitality and politeness were a lot of guns and liquor and secrets.
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south
heat
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James McBride |
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b3fd28f
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There's such a big difference between being dead and alive, I told myself, the greatest gift that anyone can give anyone else is life. And the greatest sin a person can do to another is to take away that life. Next to that, all the rules and religions in the world are secondary; mere words and beliefs that people choose to believe and kill and hate by. My life won't be lived that way, and neither, I hope, will my children's.
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James McBride |
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0bc59ae
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Sometimes without conscious realization, our thoughts, our faith, out interests are entered into the past. We talk about other times, other places, other persons, and lose our living hold on the present. Sometimes we think if we could just go back in time we would be happy. But anyone who attempts to reenter the past is sure to be disappointed. Anyone who has ever revisited the place of his birth after years of absence is shocked by the dif..
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James McBride |
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dd6fd21
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Whatever he believed, he believed. It didn't matter to him whether it was really true or not. He just changed the truth till it fit him. He was a real white man.
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James McBride |
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ba3287d
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He was like everybody in war. He believed God was on his side. Everybody got God on their side in a war. Problem is, God ain't tellin' nobody who He's for.
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James McBride |
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0682fd1
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My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.
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money
religion
inspirational
parenting
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James McBride |
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af8ece9
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Some things in this world just ain't mean to be, not in the times we want 'em to, and the heart has to hold it in this world as a remembrance, a promise for the world that's to come. There's a prize at the end of all of it, but still, that's a heavy load to bear.
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the-good-lord-bird
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James McBride |
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7575b82
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The Good Lord Bird don't run in a flock. He Flies alone. You know why? He's searching. Looking for the right tree. And when he sees that tree, that dead tree that's taking all the nutrition and good things from the forest floor. He goes out and he gnaws at it, and he gnaws at it till the thing gets tired and it falls down. And the dirt from it raises other trees. It gives them good things to eat. It makes 'em strong. Gives 'em life. And the..
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nature
the-right-thing
birds
purpose
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James McBride |
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ca50891
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since I was a little boy, she had always wanted me to go. She was always sending me off on a bus someplace, to elementary school, to camp, to relatives in Kentucky, to college. She pushed me away from her just as she'd pushed my elder siblings away when we lived in New York, literally shoving them out the front door when they left for college.
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James McBride |
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8655c1c
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See, a marriege needs love. And God. And a little money. That's all.
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James McBride |
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f121178
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It occurred to me then that you is everything you are in this life at every moment. And that includes loving somebody. If you can't be your own self, how can you love somebody? How can you be free? That pressed on my heart like a vise right then. Just mashed me down.
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James McBride |
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af0a059
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Whatever you is, Onion," he said, "be it full."
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understanding
existence
self-actualization
purpose
self
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James McBride |
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55e01e5
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God gived you the seed. But the watering and caring of that seed is up to you.
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James McBride |
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2a089e0
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The greatest gift that anyone can give anyone is LIFE. And the greatest sin a person can do is to take away that life. NEXT to that, all rules and religions in the worldare secondary, mere words and beliefs that people CHOOSE to believe and KILL and HATE by.
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James McBride |
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a695b48
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There ain't no time for foolishness now. You in it now. You got to stay in it.
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James McBride |
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50e667d
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I was so sorry, deep in my heart I was sorry, but all your "sorrys" are gone when a person dies. She was gone. Gone. That's why you have to say all your "sorrys" and "I love yous" while a person is living, because tomorrow isn't promised." --
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James McBride |
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ee5543b
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I come to the understanding that maybe what was on the inside was more important, and that your outer covering didn't count so much as folks thought it did, colored or white, man or woman.
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the-good-lord-bird
true-self
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James McBride |
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4046323
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Sometimes it seemed like the truth was a bandy-legged soul who dashed from one side of the world to the other and I could never find him.
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James McBride |
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b2a05d4
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Wonderful," he said. "Tell me. Which books in the Bible do you favor?" "Oh, I favors 'em all," Pa said. "But I mostly like Hezekiel, Ahab, Trotter, and Pontiff the Emperor." The Old Man frowned. "I don't recollect I have read those," he said."
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James McBride |
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a0f8f67
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But at the end of the day, there are some questions that have no answers, and then one answer that has no question: love rules the game. Every time. All the time. That's what counts.
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James McBride |
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2677df6
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You have to choose between what the world expects of you and what you want for yourself," my sister Jack told me several times. "Put yourself in God's hands and you can't go wrong."
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James McBride |
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e6920d1
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The man was the finest preacher. He could make a frog stand up straight and get happy with Jesus.
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James McBride |
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bf74039
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This is what happens when a boy becomes a man. You get stupider.
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James McBride |
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77470a8
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The old face, crinkled and dented with canals running every which way, pushed and shoved up against itself for a while, till a big old smile busted out from beneath 'em all, and his grey eyes fairly glowed. It was the first time I ever saw him smile free. A true smile. It was like looking at the face of God. And I knowed then, for the first time, that him being the person to lead the colored to freedom weren't no lunacy. It was something he..
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slavery
humanity
god
peace
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James McBride |
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91fea94
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I was ashamed of my mother, but see, love didn't come natural to me until I became a Christian.- Ruth McBride
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James McBride |
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98be729
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God I am looking for the one thing I have never felt but once, and I would walk through heaven and earth to find it, if he would but let me find him, so that I could feel it; and if I were to feel it again I would never leave that feeling, or him that gave it to me." - The Dreamer"
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James McBride |
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56bb129
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We all got to die," she said. "But dying as your true self is always better. God'll take you however you come to Him. But it's easier on a soul to come to Him clean. You're forever free that way. From top to bottom."
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religious
the-good-lord-bird
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James McBride |
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9e2e072
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You could see him coming from a distance, appearing out of nowhere like an angel, his silhouette seeming to rise from the ground in the simmering heat . . .
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James McBride |
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139665f
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for one thing you learns when you is a girl is that most women's hearts is full of secrets.
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James McBride |
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43f7bc3
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lm t`d ldy dmw` l'dhrfh fqd nfdt mndh zmn Twyl, wlkn 'lman jdydan ww`yan jdydan wld fy dkhly. bd' lGmwD lmtwTn fy dkhly ytbkhr, wzl l'lm ldhy sh`r bh lwld lSGyr ldhy Hdq fy lmra@. lqd styqZt nsnyty lkhS@, wS`dt ltHyyny bmSfH@, fym rqbt bzwG nwr lshms l'wl fwq l'fq. qlt lnfsy n hnk frqan kbyran byn lmwt wlHy@, w'n '`Zm hdy@ ymkn 'n y`Tyh lnsn lshkhS akhr hy lHy@, w'n '`Zm khTyy'@ ymkn 'n yrtkbh lnsn bHq shkhS akhr hy slb hdhh lHy@, l~ jnb dh..
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James McBride |
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1bf47da
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but all your 'sorrys' are gone when a person dies... That's why you have to say all your 'sorrys' and 'I love yous' while a person is living, because tomorrow isn't promised.
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James McBride |
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340ae04
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Chase looked 'round and seen Frederick's grave where we'd buried him. "Who's that?" "Don't know. We been hiding in this thicket while the Free Staters was scouting 'round here. I heard 'em say it was one of theirs." Chase pondered the grave thoughtfully. "It's a fresh grave. We ought to see if who'sever in there got on boots," he said."
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James McBride |
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2d62102
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As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from---where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say, "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. She raised twelve black children and sent us all to college and in most cases graduate school. Her children became doctors, professors, chemists, teachers---yet none of us even knew her maiden name until we were grown. It took..
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James McBride |
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a2aed8d
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I asked her who he was and she said, "He was a man ahead of his time." She actually liked Malcolm X. She put him in nearly the same category as her other civil rights heroes, Paul Robeson, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt, A. Philip Randolph, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Kennedys--any Kennedy. When Malcolm X talked about "the white devil" Mommy simply felt those references didn't apply to her."
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James McBride |
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13e1ec8
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My siblings had already instilled the notion of black pride in me. I would have preferred that Mommy were black. Now, as a grown man, I feel privileged to have come from two worlds. My view of the world is not merely that of a black man but that of a black man with something of a Jewish soul. I don't consider myself Jewish, but when I look at Holocaust photographs of Jewish women whose children have been wrenched from them by Nazi soldiers,..
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James McBride |
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14ca2ba
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She wore a flowered blue dress of the type whores naturally favored, and that thing was so tight that when she moved, the daisies got all mixed up with the azaleas. She walked like a warm room full of smoke.
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James McBride |
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c6843e0
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James Brown hid everything, and in the game of instant information he lost big-time, because the information machine turns a truth into a lie and a lie into the truth, transforms superstitions and stereotypes into fact with such ease and fluidity that after a while you get to believing as I do, that the media is not a reflection of the American culture but rather is teaching it. As long as James Brown was selling records he let that crazine..
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James McBride |
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8606403
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He said he loved Blue. He said he loved the evil in Blue. He loves the evil in all people. Because in loving their evil, he loves the evil in himself enough to surrender it to God, who washes it clean. He's loving what God made, is what he said.
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James McBride |
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b17daac
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A body can't prosper if a person don't know who they are. That makes you poor as a pea, not knowing who you are inside. That's worse than being anything in the world on the outside.
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the-good-lord-bird
true-self
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James McBride |
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18d91de
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But as a kid, I preferred the black side, and often wished that Mommy had sent me to black schools like my friends. Instead I was stuck at that white school, P.S. 138, with white classmates who were convinced I could dance like James Brown. They constantly badgered me to do the "James Brown" for them, a squiggling of the feet made famous by the "Godfather of Soul" himself, who back in the sixties was bigger than life. I tried to explain to ..
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James McBride |
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0e86c71
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The Negro comes in many colors. Dark. Black. Blacker. Blackest. Blacker than night. Black as hell. Black as tar.
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James McBride |
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ae04648
|
Everybody got God on their side in war. Problem is, God ain't tellin' nobody who He's for.
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James McBride |