βI cannot accept the proposition that the four-hundred-year travail of the American Negro should result merely in his attainment of the present level of American civilisation. I am far from convinced that being released from the African witch doctor was worthwhile if I am now - in order to support the moral contradictions and the spiritual aridity of my life - expected to become dependent on the American psychiatrist. It is a bargain I refuse.β
β The Fire Next Time
βAny upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks oneβs sense of oneβs own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white manβs world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundations.β
β James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
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