Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks, and acts by the total white community against the black community. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. This type can be recorded by television cameras; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type. When white terrorists bomb a black church and kill five black children, that is an act of individual racism, widely deplored by most segments of the society. But when in that same city - Birmingham, Alabama - five hundred black babies die each year because of the lack of proper food, shelter and medical facilities, and thousands more are destroyed and maimed physically, emotionally and intellectually because of conditions of poverty and discrimination in the black community, that is a function of institutional racism. When a black family moves into a home in a white neighborhood and is stoned, burned or routed out, they are victims of an overt act of individual racism which many people will condemn - at least in words. But it is institutional racism that keeps black people locked in dilapidated slum tenements, subject to the daily prey of exploitative slumlords, merchants, loan sharks and discriminatory real estate agents. The society either pretends it does not know of this latter situation, or is in fact incapable of doing anything meaningful about it.

Notwithstanding the memories of slavery, and in the face poverty, ignorance, terrorism, and subjugation still deeply woven into their lives, the embittered past of blacks was taken onto a much higher plane of intellectual and artistic consideration during the Renaissance.

The rig began shaking like caffeine withdrawal." --Opening sentence of THE FURY. "The duct-taped Buick swam north on Rush Street, hunting whores like a lesser white shark." --First sentence of Chapter One, THE FURY

The more this guy talked, the more he sounded like a fortune cookie.

it was unmatched life experience that bestowed in her eyes the sultry gleam that separates women from girls. although she viewed her __ife experience_ like bruises on a peach, men of all ages still found ways to see past the indications of damaged goods long enough to offer her a drink. hell, it was less than an hour ago that one such man called her __othic perfection_ and cried on her shoulder. her boyfriend agreed that a crazy life can __row a girl up quick_; it was only last november that she turned seventeen.

So it's back once more, back up the slope.Why do they always ruin my ropewith their cuts?I felt so ready the other day,Had a real foretaste of eternityIn my guts.Spoonfeeding me yet another sipfrom life's cup.I don't want it, won't take any more of it.Let me throw up.Life is medium rare and good, I see,And the world full of soup and bread,But it won't pass into the blood for me,Just goes to my head.It makes me ill, though others it feeds;Do see that I must deny it!For a thousand years from now at leastI'm keeping a diet.