#erica

We knew no one man had killed the prophet. Rather, the combined weight of racism and an absence of moral courage had crushed him. A constitution ignored, laws denied, these were the weapons. America pulled the trigger. ↗

— Marita Golden

#civil-rights-movement #martin-luther-king #mlk-martin-luther-king #courage

I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation. ↗

— Strom Thurmond

#black #black americans #contributions #creation #development

The moment any of them gave up on the difficult work of living with their neighbors--and all of the compromise, frustration, and delay that inevitably entailed--they risked losing everything. ↗

— Nathaniel Philbrick

#compromise #neighbors #working-together #courage

When you grow up in middle America you are inculcated from the earliest age with the belief - no, the understanding - that America is the richest and most powerful nation on earth because God likes us best. It has the most perfect form of government, the most exciting sporting events, the tastiest food and amplest portions, the largest cars, the cheapest gasoline, the most abundant natural resources, the most productive farms, the most devastating nuclear arsenal and the friendliest, most decent and most patriotic folks on Earth. Countries just don't come any better. So why anyone would want to live anywhere else is practically incomprehensible. In a foreigner it is puzzling; in a native it is seditious. I used to feel this way myself. ↗

— Bill Bryson

#expats #indoctrination #age

America was, to them, the place that good people went to when they died. They were prepared to believe just about anything could happen in America. ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#death #death

So here I was expecting at the very best a cordial welcome from the girls who were prepared to fight me to the death for someone I didn’t want. Instead I was embraced ↗

— Kiera Cass

#death

Call no man happy, said Shadow, until he is dead ↗

— Neil Gaiman

#death #happiness #death

I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities. ↗

— Gore Vidal

#americans #ignorance #society #death

America is the first culture in jeopardy of amusing itself to death. ↗

— John Piper

#amusement #entertainment #excess #death

The strongest continuous thread in America's political tradition is skepticism about government. ↗

— George Will

#america #continuous #government #political #skepticism