I Am A Stranger, Learning To Love

Self-determination Has To Mean That The Leader Is Your Individual Gut, And Heart, And Mind Or We're Talking About Power, Again, And Its Rather Well-known Impurities. Who Is Really Going To Care Whether You Live Or Die And Who Is Going To Know The Most Intimate Motivation For Your Laughter And Your Tears Is The Only Person To Be Trusted To Speak For You And To Decide What You Will Or Will Not Do.

In America, The Traditional Routes To Black Identity Have Hardly Been Normal. Suicide (disappearance By Imitation, Or Willed Extinction), Violence (hysterical Religiosity, Crime, Armed Revolt), And Exemplary Moral Courage; None Of These Is Normal.

What Tyranny Could Exceed A Tyranny That Dictates To The Human Heart?

All Of Western Tradition, From The Late Bloom Of The British Empire Right Through The Early Doom Of Vietnam, Dictates That You Do Something Spectacular And Irreversible Whenever You Find Yourself In Or Whenever You Impose Yourself Upon A Wholly Unfamiliar Situation Belonging To Somebody Else. Frequently It's Your Soul Or Your Honor Or Your Manhood, Or Democracy Itself, At Stake.

Like Running Trying To Live A Good Life Has To Hurt A Little Bit, Or We're Not Running Hard Enough, Not Really Trying.