The chief source of information to the enemy is through our negroes.
Robert E. Lee, “On Civil War Military Intelligence,” c. 1864
[I have] seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.
Allen Ginsberg and Lewis Hyde On the Poetry of Allen Ginsberg in Mark Foster Gage's “Rot Munching Architects” from Perspecta 47: Money, 1984 / 2014
I am not anti-Semite, but the fact that everywhere the most varied cultures have persecuted Jews is an argument against them. ... I was asked if I liked Brazil. I said no, because the country is full of negroes. They didn’t like that at all. One can’t say anything against negroes. Their only merit is to have been mistreated and that, as Bernard Shaw remarked, is no merit.
Jorge Luis Borges, "On Racism," c. 1980
It's important to learn the (sometimes despicable) faults of your heroes.
We have found out that in the general summary the free Negro counts more than he did as a slave. We have planted the schoolhouse on the hilltop and made it free to white and black. We have sowed towns and cities in the place of theories and put business above politics.
Henry W. Grady, "Creed of the New South," 1886 (via learnc)
Negro Art is above all determined and defined by religion.
Carl Einstein, "On Art," 1915 (via ambrice)