Quote of the Day

So little understanding exists between black and white America.  On the face of it we are at best civil with each other, but all too often this civility masks unresolved resentments and hatreds.  African Americans are repeatedly asked to reveal proof of the realities of racism to skeptical white people.  They reluctantly explain the countless incidents of discrimination, and even assaults directed at them and those they love.  Some cite the election of President Barack Obama as evidence that racism has ended.  More often than not, the response of the questioner is denial and disbelief, while the black person, having reopened wounds, is left frustrated and reinjured.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 16

Quote of the Day

The distrust many black people have for whites is often palpable.  The indifference of most whites to the black experience is contemptible.  The disparities with regard to health, wealth, and education are vast and expanding.  All of these things make it more difficult to live as a black person in America than as a white person.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 16

Quote of the Day

America's resistance to accepting responsibility for slavery and repairing the damage continues to prevent the nation from taking its place as the world's moral leader.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 15-16

Hearing Joy DeGruy

I was pleased to be able to hear Dr. Joy DeGruy speak at the annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Civil Rights Lecture at Hope College yesterday.  I am currently reading her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, and look forward to continuing to learn from her important work.

Quote of the Day

This, then, is racism: the belief that people differ along biological and genetic lines and that one's own group is superior to another group.  These beliefs are coupled with and compounded by the power to negatively affect the lives and limit the options of those perceived to be inferior.  America's history is inextricably bound to this racist ideology.  From the codifying of slavery to the belief in Manifest Destiny, to the treatment of illegal immigrants and the branding of them as criminals, rapists, or potential terrorists, many of America's actions continue to conflict with its creed that, "All men are created equal."

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 15

Quote of the Day

(Whenever I ask an audience) to identify how black racism adversely impacts the lives of white people as a group, there is silence.  There is silence, because while black people may have prejudices, and at times even feel hatred toward white people, perhaps even inspiring fear in many, the reality is that black people lack the power to affect the lives of white people, as a group, in the same way [as white people affect the lives of black people].  Black people's feelings toward white people do not preclude a white person's ability to get a loan, receive fair treatment by the justice system, acquire education, and so on.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 14-15

Quote of the Day

Race is a concept of society that insists there is a genetic significance behind human variations in skin color that transcends outward appearance.  However, race has no scientific merit outside of sociological classifications.  There are no significant genetic variations within the human species to justify the division of "races."

-- James King, The Biology of Race

Quote of the Day

At the root of (racism) is the unchallenged belief that there are physical differences between people that account for the intellectual attributes and abilities of those people.  Since before Aristotle's time, people have been using the idea of racial difference to justify the subjugation and enslavement of those different and less powerful than themselves.  Such brutality and oppression in the name of racial superiority has occurred so many times, over so many years, that we, as a nation, can no longer recognize and acknowledge the simple beauty in the diversity of the human family.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 12-13

Quote of the Day

Why was there so little racial tension in South Africa, a country with fresh, open wounds from apartheid?  And why was there so much racial tension in America, a country that supposedly put an end to its great sin of chattel slavery well over a hundred years ago, and its version of apartheid years prior to my visit to South Africa [in 1994]?  Perhaps South Africans experience so little tension compared to Americans because officially apartheid had such a short life span, about forty-five years.  Perhaps it is because in the end they voluntarily gave up their unjust system.  Perhaps it is because South Africa admitted their crimes to the world, and through the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (established in 1996, two years after apartheid was abolished), many whites in South Africa owned up to the crimes they committed against their black countrymen.  Maybe it is because South Africa has fought, suffered, and continues to struggle to establish justice and firm footing while in the plain sight of us all.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. 12

Quote of the Day

Those who have been the victims of years, decades, and centuries of oppression first must heal from injuries received first-hand, as well as those passed down through the ages.  Those who have been the perpetrators of those unspeakable crimes, and those who continue to benefit from those crimes, have to honestly confront their deeds and heal from the psychic wounds that come with being the cause and beneficiaries of such great pain and suffering.

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. iv

Quote of the Day

(The crimes of subjugating, enslaving and exterminating one another) are perpetrated in a seemingly never-ending cycle.  The powerful oppress the less powerful, who in turn oppress those even less powerful than they.  These cycles of oppression leave scars on the victims and victors alike, scars that embed themselves in our collective psyches and are passed down through generations, robbing us of our humanity.  For who can be truly human under the weight of oppression that condemns them to a life of torment, robs them of a future, and saps their free will?  Moreover, who can become truly human when they gain so much from the pain and suffering of those whom they oppress and/or take advantage of?

-- Joy DeGruy, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, p. iv

Bookin' It in 2018

I read the following 17 books in 2018. The titles in bold were particularly influential, inspiring or intriguing.

1. When We Rise: My Life in the Movement by Cleve Jones
2. What Happened by Hillary Rodham Clinton 
3. I Feel Bad About My Neck and Other Thoughts on Being a Woman by Nora Ephron
4. Mister Rogers: A Biography of the Wonderful Life of Fred Rogers by Jennifer Warner
5. I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
6. To Drink from the Silver Cup: From Faith Through Exile and Beyond by Anna Redsand
7. Dear Madam President: An Open Letter to the Women Who Will Run the World by Jennifer Palmieri
8. Make Trouble: Standing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding the Courage to Lead by Cecile Richards
9. What Truth Sounds Like: RFK, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America by Michael Eric Dyson
10. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
11. Awkward Moments Children’s Bible: Volume #3 by Horus Gilgamesh
12. Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur
13. Then Comes Marriage: How Two Women Fought for and Won Equal Dignity for All by Roberta Kaplan
14. Perfectly Clear: Escaping Scientology and Fighting for the Woman I Love by Michelle LeClair
15. What I Hate: From A to Z by Roz Chast
16. Notes from a Public Typewriter edited by Michael Gustafson and Oliver Uberti
17. Dear Fahrenheit 451: Love and Heartbreak in the Stacks: A Librarian's Love Letters and Breakup Notes to the Books in Her Life by Annie Spence