Okey Ndibe

Americans can't stand any stranger looking them in the face. They take it as an insult. It's something they don't forgive. And every American carries a gun. If they catch you, a stranger, looking them in the face, they will shoot.

What I know are simple truths. I know that the fabric of memory is reinforced by stories, rent by silences. I know that power dreads memory. I know that memory outlasts power's viciousness. I know . . . that a voiceless man is as good as dead.

wash off the journey

Winter, I wrote, was akin to living inside a refrigerator.

In a society where people are obsessed with personal space, dogs have come to serve as welcome, neo-human mediators of loneliness and solitude.

A story that must be told never forgives silence.

Remember this: a story that must be told never forgives silence. Speech is the mouth's debt to a story.

that we die, our very humanity slayed, whenever we choose to remain silent in the face of tyranny.