I Have Created A Life Style That

Widespread Cultural Acceptance Of Lying Is A Primary Reason Many Of Us Will Never Know Love

To Be Changed By Ideas Was Pure Pleasure. But To Learn Ideas That Ran Counter To Values And Beliefs Learned At Home Was To Place Oneself At Risk, To Enter The Danger Zone. Home Was The Place Where I Was Forced To Conform To Someone Else’s Image Of Who And What I Should Be. School Was The Place Where I Could Forget That Self And, Through Ideas, Reinvent Myself.

. . .there Is An Element Of Play That Is Almost Ritualistic In Black Folk Life. It Serves To Mediate The Tensions, Stress, And Pain Of Constant Exploitation And Oppression.

Life-transforming Ideas Have Always Come To Me Through Books.

Readers Forget That One Can Critique Yet Still Admire.