by
Zadie Smith
132
Speaking in Tongues
1
terms
2
notes
141
[...] I cannot honestly say I feel proud to be white and ashamed to be black or proud to be black and ashamed to be white. I find it impossible to experience either pride of shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I understand how those words got into the racial discourse, but I can't sign up to them. I'm not proud to be female either. I am not even proud to be human---I only love to be so. As I love to be female and I love to be black, and I love that I had a white father.
[...] I cannot honestly say I feel proud to be white and ashamed to be black or proud to be black and ashamed to be white. I find it impossible to experience either pride of shame over accidents of genetics in which I had no active part. I understand how those words got into the racial discourse, but I can't sign up to them. I'm not proud to be female either. I am not even proud to be human---I only love to be so. As I love to be female and I love to be black, and I love that I had a white father.
lacuna
(en)
an unfilled space; a gap (plural: lacunae)
142
The giant lacunae in his biography are merely a convenience
on Shakespeare
notable
7 years, 6 months ago
The giant lacunae in his biography are merely a convenience
on Shakespeare
notable
7 years, 6 months ago
148
[...] A hesitation in the face of difference, which leads to caution before difference and ends in fear of it. Before long, the only voice you recognize, the only life you can empathize with, is your own. [...] I believe that flexibility of voice leads to a flexibility in all things. My audacious hope in Obama is based, I'm afraid, on precisely such flimsy premises.
on being invited to a "crazy reggae bar" in Harlem on the night that Obama was elected
her hope in Obama is based on the fact that in Dreams From My Father, he's able to write other people's voices so well
[...] A hesitation in the face of difference, which leads to caution before difference and ends in fear of it. Before long, the only voice you recognize, the only life you can empathize with, is your own. [...] I believe that flexibility of voice leads to a flexibility in all things. My audacious hope in Obama is based, I'm afraid, on precisely such flimsy premises.
on being invited to a "crazy reggae bar" in Harlem on the night that Obama was elected
her hope in Obama is based on the fact that in Dreams From My Father, he's able to write other people's voices so well