Quotes
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“The single most annoying thing a nonreligious person can say…”
This confession from a L.A. screenwriter about why she goes to church is pretty great. These three paragraphs about the faith of atheists were my favorite, but you should read the entire thing. The single most annoying thing a nonreligious person can say, in my opinion, isn’t that religion is oppressive or that religious people…
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“African-American wealth is about 5 percent of white wealth…”
Today African-American incomes on average are about 60 percent of average white incomes. But African-American wealth is about 5 percent of white wealth. Most middle-class families in this country gain their wealth from the equity they have in their homes. So this enormous difference between a 60 percent income ratio and a 5 percent wealth…
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“True spirituality is one that is incarnate in acts.”
Even if I must be reckoned a materialist, I shall add that I scarcely believe in a spirituality that is content with interior states. Just as it is unhealthy to be content with observances without caring about what goes on inside, so we are deceived by cultivating sentiments not translated into any practice. Pharisaic exteriority…
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“Forgetfulness is the easy way out…”
Innocent history is selective forgetfulness, used precisely to avoid the consequences of a more realistic memory… Responsible remembrance, on the other hand, leads to responsible action. A clear example is the repeated injunctions to Israel: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21);…
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“We are not Chi-raq…”
Chicago is arguably the capital of black America. The legacy of African Americans reverberates from the Johnson Publishing Company, with its flagship publication Ebony, to multiple black hair-care companies to the first black US congressman elected in the north. All of this before Oprah Winfrey set roots here. It’s not by accident, then, that the…
David W. Swanson 