I have raised you to respect every human being as singular. And you must extend that same respect into the past. Slavery is not an indefinable mass of flesh. It is a particular, specific enslaved woman whose mind is as active as your own, whose range of feelings as vast as your own, who prefers the way the light falls in one particular spot in the woods, who enjoys fishing where the water eddys in the nearby stream, who loves her mother in her own complicated way, thinks her sister talks to loud, has a favorite cousin, a favorite season, who excels at dress making, and knows inside herself that she is as intelligent and capable as anyone. Slavery is the same woman born in a world that loudly proclaims its love of freedom and describes this world in essential texts. A world in which these same professors hold this woman a slave. Hold her mother a slave, her father a slave, her daughter a slave. And when this woman peers back into the generations, all she sees is the enslaved. She can hope for more. She can imagine some future for her grandchildren, but when she dies, the world, which is really the only world she can really know, ends. For this woman enslavement is not a parable, it is damnation, it is the never ending night, and the length of that night is most of our history. Never forget that we were enslaved in this country longer than we have been free. Never forget that for 250 years black people were born into chains, whole generations followed by more generations who knew nothing but chains. .TaNehisi Coates
About This Quote
I don't know what I would do without my brother. He is my best friend, my biggest fan, and the guy who will always be there for me. He has always stood by me no matter what, even when some people wouldn't. He's never down on me, always encouraging me to do better.
He's someone who loves to help others, and he's someone who is always willing to learn new things. When I was having issues with my parents about whether or not I should accept a scholarship to college, he was the first person I called. He just wanted to help me out of whatever situation was causing me issues.
When I started dating him, he was the one who was there for me through it all. He's just one of those people that you can depend on no matter what.
Source: Between The World And Me
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