Quote of the Day

I have in mind the argument that black folk should do like the European immigrants who came to America and worked hard to become successful.  The best response to such a baseless comparison is a direct one: whiteness matters.  My friends, in the short term, and in the long run, too, being Irish, or Italian, or Polish, or Jewish hasn't been as large a deficit to achievement as color has been for black folk.  It is true that the barriers of language, ethnicity, and culture are big ones, but they don't make the same difference that being black makes.  White immigrants came to this country, and still do, with white skin, the biggest asset possible in a country where whiteness still has tremendous value.  It makes no sense to tell black folk to do what white immigrants did to become successful.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, Tears We Cannot Stop, p. 208-209