We know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin.
W.E.B. Du Bois: “We know in America how to discourage, choke, and murder ability when it so far forgets itself as to choose a dark skin.”
Editor's note · Context
This quote starkly illustrates the systemic racism in America that undermines the abilities of Black individuals.
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So wofully unorganized is sociological knowledge that the meaning of progress, the meaning of “swift” and “slow” in human doing, and the limits of human perfectability, are veiled, unanswered sphinxes on the shores of science.
If somewhere in this whirl and chaos of things there dwells Eternal Good, pitiful yet masterful, then anon in His good time America shall rend the Veil and the prisoned shall go free.
Let the ears of a guilty people tingle with truth, and seventy millions sigh for the righteousness which exalteth nations, in this drear day when human brotherhood is mockery and a snare.