Quote of the Day

how you love yourself is
how you teach others
to love you

-- Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey, p. 186

Quote of the Day

The systematic use of nicknames such as "Lyin' Ted" and "Crooked Hillary" displaced certain character traits that might more appropriately have been affixed to the president himself.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 67

Quote of the Day

Many Americans wrongly think of the military as the exclusive, or primary, guardian of American pride and patriotism.  However, only in a totalitarian society does the military define, instead of defend, what it means to be American.  We must never lose the battle for democracy in such careless formulations.  We must not surrender to bullets and bombs what can only be had by belief and behavior -- like the encouragement of dissent, the tolerance of wide disagreement about what it means to be American, and the freedom to protest for freedom. 

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 248-249

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As [totalitarianism observer Victor] Klemperer noted, the fascist style depends upon "endless repetition," designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 66-67

Quote of the Day

Ironically, [Colin] Kaepernick has been accused of disrespecting an American flag that was long ago replaced by the Confederate flag for millions of white southerners.  Those who hoist the Confederate flag indulge in romantic treason -- since it is the emblem of secession from our country -- often at, or on the way to, American football stadiums.  He is said, too, to dishonor military veterans, though it is hard to see how, since the very freedoms for which they fought guarantee Kaepernick his dissent.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 248

Quote of the Day

You submit to tyranny when you renounce the difference between what you want to hear and what is actually the case.  This renunciation of reality can feel natural and pleasant, but the result is your demise as an individual -- and thus the collapse of any political system that depends upon individualism.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 66

Quote of the Day

Black art couldn't help but be political as its creation rebutted a philosophy that doubted its existence.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 89

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To abandon facts is to abandon freedom.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 65

Quote of the Day

[To] be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. 

-- James Baldwin

Quote of the Day

Influential Americans such as Charles Lindbergh opposed war with the Nazis under the slogan "America First."

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 52

Quote of the Day

... [James] Baldwin predicted the forces that would one day lead to the return of xenophobic white nationalism, to the rise of Donald Trump.  But to say Baldwin was ahead of his time is to miss his point: America will always need a martyr, a prophet -- a Malcolm, a Martin.  The powerful will always seek to silence that prophet, trying to achieve the nation's redemption on the cheap -- not through self-correction, but through crimson-stained violence that sacrifices the Other, whether black or brown or queer or immigrant.  Fifty years after one lone prophet who didn't make it to forty gave up the ghost on a bland balcony in Memphis, King's legacy, and Baldwin's words, are as urgent as ever.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 8

Quote of the Day

Stand out.  Someone has to.  It is easy to follow along.  It can feel strange to do or say something different.  But without that unease, there is no freedom.  Remember Rosa Parks.  The moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 51

Quote of the Day

In Wakanda, we finally get the chance to just be -- like white folk can, and do, every day of their lives.  Yes, it's true, white folk have a Wakanda, too, but its name is different, because, even though it's chock full of myths, ideals, tales, and potions, it actually exists in real time, with real flesh and blood, with real cities and realities attached to it.  It's name is democracy.  Its name is Iowa, or New York.  Its name is bread, and car, and air, and speech, and school, and law and travel and society; in other words, whatever and wherever whiteness exists and is seen as normal and necessary, as usual, as taken for granted, as presumed, as invisible and unaccountable and, therefore, not necessary to be named Wakanda.  Fantasy ain't needed when reality already provides what fiction aims for.  Wakanda is necessary for us because our black lives are seen as anything but.  Wakanda matters because black lives don't.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 271-272

Quote of the Day

Every large-scale shooting action of the Holocaust (more than thirty-three thousand Jews murdered outside Kyiv, more than twenty-eight thousand outside Riga, and on and on) involved regular German police. 

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 50

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... works of art have always inspired us to see ourselves in ways that aren't permitted when ruthless and narrow versions of reality pass for truth.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 277

Quote of the Day

Be reflective if you must be armed.  If you carry a weapon in public service, may God bless you and keep you.  But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things.  Be ready to say no.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 47

Quote of the Day

I believe that most of the ills that I address in this book -- the racism, the sexism, the homophobia -- can be engaged, if not relieved, if we, yes, reread [James] Baldwin and scores of really smart black intellectuals, including Robin D. G. Kelley and Farah Jasmine Griffin, and if we elect good politicians like Kamala Harris, Andrea Jenkins, Ras Baraka, and Eric Holder, and if we listen to great artists like Jay-Z and Beyonce, and Kendrick [Lamar] and Rapsody.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 269

Quote of the Day

Nazi storm troopers began as a security detail clearing the halls of Hitler's opponents during his rallies ... As a candidate, the president ordered a private security detail to clear opponents from rallies, but also encouraged the audience itself to remove people who expressed different opinions ... The candidate interjected: "Isn't this more fun than a regular boring rally?  To me, it's fun."  This kind of mob violence was meant to transform the political atmosphere, and it did.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 44-45

Quote of the Day

Bobby [Kennedy] learned to see race as more than a political matter and began to see racism as [James] Baldwin and his group [of prominent black artists, activists, and intellectuals who met with Bobby in the spring of 1963] had urged him to see it: as moral rot at the heart of the American empire.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 264

Quote of the Day

It is impossible to carry out democratic elections, try cases at court, design and enforce laws, or indeed manage any of the other quiet business of government when agencies beyond the state also have access to violence.  For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics.  Such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal bodyguard of a particular politician -- or apparently spontaneous citizens' initiatives, which usually turn out to have been organized by a party or its leader.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 43

Quote of the Day

(Substantive social transformation in our country) cannot happen without agitation and resistance, without protest and uncomfortable moments of reckoning.  [Colin] Kaepernick's legacy resides far beyond the gridiron he deserves to play on; it resides in the spiral of social awareness and public conscience that his poignant protest has unleashed.  Like [Jackie] Robinson, and [Muhammad] Ali, and so many others, his inspiring example rallies many more to muster the courage to face down oppression in our land.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 262

Quote of the Day

If lawyers had followed the norm of no execution without trial, if doctors had accepted the rule of no surgery without consent, if businessmen had endorsed the prohibition of slavery, if bureaucrats had refused to handle paperwork involving murder, then the Nazi regime would have been much harder pressed to carry out the atrocities by which we remember it.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 40

Quote of the Day

What President Trump's Twitter fingers reveal, what his twitchy, apoplectic outrage proves, is that he is, perhaps, the most unpatriotic of all American presidents.  But his perverted vision of patriotism cannot stop the efforts of the truly righteous.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 259

Quote of the Day

The history of lapel pins is far from innocent.  In Nazi Germany in 1933, people wore lapel pins that said "Yes" during the elections and referendum that confirmed the one-party state.  In Austria in 1938, people who had not previously been Nazis began to wear swastika pins.  What might seem like a gesture of pride can be a source of exclusion.  In the Europe of the 1930s and '40s, some people chose to wear swastikas, and then others had to wear yellow stars. 

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 35

Quote of the Day

A black person often has to be a superstar athlete and beloved icon to enjoy only some of the perks that many white folk can take for granted at birth.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 253

Quote of the Day

The wish that Jews might disappear, perhaps suppressed at first, rose as it was leavened by greed.  Thus the Germans who marked shops as "Jewish" participated in the process by which Jews really did disappear -- as did people who simply looked on.  Accepting the markings as a natural part of the urban landscape was already a compromise with a murderous future.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 34-35

Quote of the Day

It makes sense for athletes to raise their voices beyond the field of play.  If they have built up cultural capital and garnered enormous success, it means that considerable quarters of white America are not only paying -- they are paying attention.  The money athletes make may not be as important as the mark they can leave on the minds of those who admire them.  Therefore, many of them are compelled to speak up for justice, equality, and opportunity.  It makes sense for them to do so: they know that the black people who are unknown to the masses of white folk are deserving of the same decency and respect that they are given.  Thus, they can leverage their influence and fame on behalf of the black folk whose love and nurture made them stars.

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 252-253

Quote of the Day

Life is political, not because the world cares about how you feel, but because the world reacts to what you do.  The minor choices we make are themselves a kind of vote, making it more or less likely that free and fair elections will be held in the future.  In the politics of the everyday, our words and gestures, or their absence, count very much.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 33

Meeting Anna-Lisa Cox

I had the honor of hearing award-winning historian, author and Harvard University fellow Anna-Lisa Cox speak last night at Uncommon Coffee Roasters about her groundbreaking new book, The Bone and Sinew of the Land.

Quote of the Day

[Jackie] Robinson, [Larry] Doby, Campy [Roy Campanella], and [Don] Newcombe were the easiest translation of what the civil rights movement aimed for: give black folk a chance, treat us fairly, make one set of rules for us all to abide by, and we will do well.  In our day, what [Colin] Kaepernick and his cohort are shooting for is similar: don't assume black people are thugs, don't fear us because we are black, give us a chance to live as we explain ourselves to the police. 

-- Michael Eric Dyson, What Truth Sounds Like, p. 252

Quote of the Day

The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow.  Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate.  Do not look away, and do not get used to them.  Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.

-- Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, p. 32