White's

“ Kenneth, what you and all the rest of Negroes need is to learn that you belong to a race that was centuries old when the first white man came into the world. You’ve got to learn that a large part of this thing they call ‘white civilization’ was made by black hands, as well as by yellow and brown and red hands, too, besides what white hands have created. You’ve got to learn that the Negro to-day is contributing as much of the work that makes this civilization possible as the white race, if not more. ”

“ White was of that happy-go-lucky temperament that nothing ever dismayed—not even the reproaches of his own conscience and—although he had never crossed the continent, he knew those who had, and felt himself equal to the emergency. ”

“ As he saw each day more and more of the evasions, the repressions, the choking back of natural impulses the Negro practised to avoid trouble, Kenneth often thought of the coloured man as a chip of wood floating on the surface of a choppy sea, tossed this way and that by every wind that blew upon the waters. ”

“ It was good to know there were some white men who were thinking seriously on the race problem. And trying to be fair. Most white Southerners were modern Pontius Pilates. Figuratively and literally, mentally and morally, they washed their hands of all personal responsibility for the increasing complexities of the race question. He wondered how many more men there were in the South like those three. Broadminded but afraid to speak out. Ewing, Judge Stevenson, Scott, Anthony, Gordon—all by word or action seemed [264] mortally afraid lest the public know they were even thinking of justice. ”

“ When a white person speaks of Walter White as a Negro, as if that made him a being physically different from a white, I get a weird and impish feeling of the unreality of phenomena. And when a colored person refers to Walter White as colored, in a tone that implies him to be physically different from and inferior to the "pure" white person, I feel that life is sublimely funny. ”

“ Although he had travelled far, yet was his face white; white like those hermits that dwell apart in caves; white was he as the live white of the growing lily, as the pallor of the moon in daylight; and the men and women of the city marvelled, for they were a dark people that worked in the furrows of the earth and lived daily in the sun. ”

“ White’s literary work, will earn a high place in fiction. It is good and clean and provides a vacation from the cares of the hour. It resembles a Chinese play, because it begins with the hero’s boyhood, describes his long, busy life, and ends with his death. Its tone is often religious, never flippant, and one of its best assets is its glowing descriptions of the calm, serene beauties of nature. Its moral is that a magnate never did any real good with money.”—Oregonian, Portland, Oregon. ”

“ White itself is advanced or brought forward, unless indeed white surround a dark object, in which case they retire together. In mixture, white communicates these properties to its tints, and harmonizes in conjunction with, or in opposition to all colours; but lies nearest in series to yellow, and remotest from blue, of which, next to black, it is the most thorough contrast. ”

“ Alas! if color could disgrace a people, how deep in the nethermost regions of shame, would that color be, which is called white in the United States; frequently with such utter recklessness of truth. White! ”

“ Now this means simply that these people have bought "distinction" at the price of one of mankind's most delightful birthrights, the pleasure in white, the queen, as Leonardo put it, of all colours. Our minds, our very sensations are interwoven so intricately of all manner of impressions and associations, that it is no allegory to say that white is good, and that the love of white is akin somehow to the love of virtue. ”

“ In the midst of all a great palpitating star glistered, so white that with these strong contrasts of the flaunting heavens one might feel, for the first time, a full discernment of the effect of white. ”

“ White! there is no whiteness like that of the human face. It was whiter than the foam about the skerry it was; whiter than the moon shining; whiter than ... well, as white as the painted letters on the black boards of the fishing-cobles. There he stood, for all that the sea was about him, the slip-slop waves leapin’ wild, and the tide making, too, at that. He was shaking like a sail two points off the wind. It was then that, all of a sudden, he called in a womany, screamin’ voice—
“‘I am throwing the sins of Adam Blair [156] into the midst of ye, white dogs o’ the sea! ”

“ For how can you say distinctly that anything is white, when it may happen that that which is black may appear white? Or how are we to call those things evident, or to say that they are impressed faithfully on the mind, when it is uncertain whether it is really moved or only in an illusory manner? ”

“ The Muslims also glory in white turbans; but I should be tedious, were I to repeat all that may be said in praise of white; little and enough is better than too much. So now I will begin with thy dispraise, O black, O colour of ink and blacksmith’s dust, thou whose face is like the crow that brings about lovers’ parting! Verily, the poet saith in praise of white and dispraise of black:
Seest not that for their milky hue white pearls in price excel And charcoal for a groat a load the folk do buy and sell? ”

“ A whiteness hovers o'er my nights.
White dews, white crescent moons, white dawns,
White flickering feet, white-gleaming hands,
White limbs that dream on twilight lawns,
White limbs that dance on shimmering sands. ”

“ In a moment the white race had fused into a homogeneous mass of love, sympathy, hate, and revenge. The rich and the poor, the learned and the ignorant, the banker and the blacksmith, the great and the small, they were all one now. ”

“ Folks like you and me could live here for a hundred years and there’d never be no trouble. There’d never be no race problem if they was only like us. But”—and his voice took on a doubtful and sorrowful sound—“the most of this trouble we’re havin’ is caused by fool Negroes who go up No’th to school and run around with those coloured folks in New York and Chicago who tell ‘em how bad we po’ coloured folks are bein’ treated in the South. ”

“ White has written a big and satisfying book made up of the elements of American life as we know them—the familiar humor, sorrows, ambitions, crimes, sacrifices—revealed to us with peculiar freshness and vigor in the multitude of human actions and by the crowd of delightful people who fill his four hundred odd pages. ”

“ Seventhly, And as by a Change of Position in the Parts, a Body that is not White, may be made White, so by a Slight change of the Texture of its Surface, a White Body may be Depriv'd of its Whiteness. ”

“ Ellis; "if you should settle down here, you'll have to be either one thing or other—white or coloured. Either you must live exclusively amongst coloured people, or go to the whites and remain with them. But to do the latter, you must bear in mind that it must never be known that you have a drop of African blood in your veins, or you would be shunned as if you were a pestilence; no matter how fair in complexion or how white you may be." ”

“ Civilization! Hell! The damned hypocrites!
The liars! The fiends! “White civilization”! Paugh! Black and brown and yellow hands had built it! The white fed like carrion on the rotting flesh of the darker peoples! And called their toil their own! And burned those on whose bodies their vile civilization was built!
Bob had been right! Bob had been a man! He’d fought and died like a man! He, Kenneth, with all his professed and vaunted wisdom, was the coward! He cursed himself! Building a fool’s paradise! A house of cards! To hell with everything! What [272] was life worth anyway? ”

“ His work finished for the day, he went as soon as he decently could to talk with Jane. She, too, had been at work. Eagerly they planned between them the infinite details of so ambitious a scheme. Confidently they discounted possible difficulties they might expect to encounter—the opposition of the whites who were profiting from the present system, the petty jealousies and suspicions of those who would gain most from the success of their scheme. They realized that the Negro had been robbed so much, both by his own people and by the whites, that he was chary of new plans and projects. ”

“ White. "Shouting the battle-cry of freedom."
Fred. There, boys, I knew you could sing. Now come in, and I will tell Master Green how capitally you have done—that I couldn't do better myself.
[Exit.
[page 62]
White. Well, Johnny, we got out of that scrape pretty well.
Gray. Yes, Ned; but it's a poor way. I must pay a little more attention to my singing.
White. And so must I, for we may not always have a teacher on whom the old saying fits so well.
Gray. Old saying? What's that?
White. "Where ignorance is bliss—"
Gray. O, yes, "'Twere folly to be wise." ”

“ Two or three days after I had been waited on by the Triteriteites, the same honour was done me by the Whiteites, and with similar views. To the gentlemen of this party, I said precisely what I had said to those of the opposite faction, and begged of them, in heaven’s name, to let me alone, and settle the matter amongst them as they best could.
“Well,” replied one of the gentlemen, when I had done, “I must say, I did not expect this of you, Mr. B. I thought I could have reckoned on your support; but it doesn’t signify. We can secure Mr. White’s appointment without you. ”

“ But the more she talked, the less was I reassured, and I stopped her by asking: "Well, mother, am I white? Are you white?" She answered tremblingly: "No, I am not white, but you—your father is one of the greatest men in the country—the best blood of the South is in you—" This suddenly opened up in my heart a fresh chasm of misgiving and fear, and I almost fiercely demanded: "Who is my father? ”

“ The simile of the protective device of the chameleon came to his mind. Yes, the Negro in the South had many things in common with the chameleon—he had to be able to change his colour figuratively to suit the environment of the South in order to be allowed to stay alive. His own trouble with the Parkers and Lane seemed much more trivial now than before. He looked at Mr. Wilson and asked:
“What’s the purpose of this meeting to-night? How can I help, Reverend Wilson?”
“It’s like this. A good part of my congregation is made up of folks who live out in the country. ”

“ Some bring in clothes, to be sure, because the white man asks it; but why no sensible man could say. They are hung from one shoulder, flap merrily in the breeze, and are always quite frankly tucked up about the neck or under the arms when the wearer happens to be in haste. As a matter of fact these savages are so beautifully and smoothly formed; their red-brown or chocolate-brown skin is so fine in texture, and their complete unconsciousness so genuine that in an hour the newcomer is quite accustomed to their nakedness. ”

“ He continued:
“The Southern white man boasts he knows the Negro better than anybody else, but he knows less what the coloured man is really thinking than the man in the moon. I’ll bet anything you say, that seven out of every ten men in town believe that you and I and all the rest of us coloured folks are scared to death every time we hear the word ‘Ku Klux.’ They believe the sight of one of those fool robes’ll make us run and hide under a bed⸺”
[130] “Oh, I don’t go quite that far,” interrupted Kenneth. ”

“ Such is the history of the verb ‘to be,’ which in popular language has entirely lost even the sense of ‘existence.’ Again, in a still more advanced state, it was found necessary to speak, not only of things, but of their attributes. Thus such a sentence as ‘Whiteness is an attribute of snow,’ has identically the same meaning as ‘Snow is white’ and ‘White snow;’ and the change of ‘white’ into ‘whiteness’ is a purely formal device to enable us to place an attribute-word as the subject of a proposition. ”

“ He knew well the forces and attractions, as well as the enfeebling and demoralizing influences, of the white man's mode of life. In his own mind he had balanced well the life of civilization and of barbarism, and his savage instincts decided him to retain for his people the state of Nature. With a power of appeal — pointed with sarcasm, scorn, and invective — which proved him able to stir the wildest passions of his hearers, he bid them despise the plough and loom and all the implements of thrift and toil, and cling to their primitive customs. ”

“ Being permitted to play with their children, I have been in their presence while they were conducting their business, and the amount of wisdom the white men know is wonderful. Great thoughts—too great for me to understand—dropped from their mouths—from one to another—just as those pearls which thou dost play with are passed from thy right hand to thy left. ”

“ We shall never see such days as those in which he flourished.’ He commemorated White's annual feast to the chimney-sweeps in one of his most familiar essays, and in the essay ‘On some Old Actors’ he gives a pleasant account of White's discomfiture by Dodd the comedian. ”

“ In such a white world, the entrance of a black man would be hailed with joy by the inhabitants. Anybody or anything would be welcome that would break the oppressive and tormenting monotony of the all-prevailing white. ”

“ White produces his books fast and in highly finished form. He is essentially a realist. Human achievement, with all its vital interest and meaning, laid hold early on his imagination and gave to his stories their all-pervading sense of truth to life. As a critic has said, “One puts down a book by him with a feeling of having read through experiences, dramatic and full of romance, yet never breaking the bounds of probability—and that is fine art.” ”

“ One man to four hundred is great odds, I own, But this 'yer's a White Man—I plays it alone!" And he sprang up the hillside—to stop him none dare— Till a yell from the top told a "White Man was there!" A White Man was there! We prayed he might spare Those misguided heathens The few clothes they wear. They fled, and he followed, but no matter where; They fled to escape him,—the "White Man was there,"— Till we missed first his voice on the pine-wooded slope, And we knew for the heathen henceforth was no hope ”