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“Science says the races are biologically equal so if they're not in society, the only reason why can be racism.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“Had they taken a poll in Philadelphia in 1776, they would have scrapped the whole idea of independence. A third of the country was for it, a third of the country was against it, and the remaining third, in the old human way, was waiting to see who came out on top.”
― David McCullough, The American Spirit: Who We Are and What We Stand For

“As an inhabitant of a Mississippi River town happily shouts out in the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, “You pays your money and you makes your choice!â€� That may be the most American sentence ever written.”
― Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

“The United States of America has a white majority that remembers a history of discovery, opportunity, expansion, and exceptionalism.  Meanwhile our communities of color have the lived experiences of stolen lands, broken treaties, slavery, Jim Crowe laws, Indian removal, ethnic cleansing, lynchings, boarding schools, mass incarceration, and families separated at our boarders.  Our country does not have a common memory.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

“  It feels like our indigenous peoples are an old grandmother who lives in a very large house. It is a beautiful house with plenty of rooms and comfortable furniture. But years ago, some people came into her house and locked her upstairs in the bedroom. Today her home is full of people. They are sitting on her furniture. They are eating her food. They are having a party in her house. They have since come upstairs and unlocked the door to her, bedroom but now it is much later, and she is tired, old, weak and sick; so she can't or doesn't want to come out. But what is the most hurtful and what causes her the most pain, is that virtually no one from this party ever comes upstairs to find the grandmother in the bedroom.  No one sits down next to her on the bed, takes her hand, and simply says, "Thank you. Thank you for letting us be in your house.”
― Mark Charles, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

“More than anything else, I have learned in researching this book that America is a moving target, a goal that must always be pursued but never quite reached.”
― Thomas E. Ricks, First Principles: What America's Founders Learned from the Greeks and Romans and How That Shaped Our Country

“We have embraced the stories of success and exceptionalism rather than engaging the narrative of suffering and oppression.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

“The fact that America calls what Columbus did 'discovery' reveals the implicit racial bias of the country - that Native Americans are not fully human.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

“The Doctrine of Discovery, first directed towards Portugal then directed towards Spain, affirmed the imperial ambitions of these two European powers.  It gave theological permission for the European body and mind to view themselves as superior to the non-European body and minds.  The doctrine created an insider perception for the European while generating an outside, other identity for non-Europeans; it create an identity for African bodies as inferior and only worthy of subjugation; it also relegated the identity of the original inhabitants of the land 'discovered' to become outsiders, now unwelcome in their own land.”
― Soong-Chan Rah, Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery

“It requires but a few threads of hope, for the heart that is skilled in the secret, to weave a web of happiness.”
― Sarah Josepha Hale

“The Capitol is not a building, it's a symbol of our democracy, and an assault on it is an assault on everything that we've achieved as a civilized people.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“This town is shocked that some Arab guy would dare rape a rich, white girl, but American soldiers are, like, raping and torturing tons of women over there.”
― Nick Drnaso, Beverly

“Trump talks tough on China, but much of the Trump-branded products including his hideous ties are made there. President Trump has launched an incompetent trade war with China that cost American farmers and consumers billions. When he started losing, he tried to help farmers. But he screwed that up, too. Most of the money went to big corporations instead of family farms. The money for Trump’s corporate farm bailout was borrowed fromâ€� yes, you guessed itâ€� China.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“His supporters are not dumb. They voted for Trump with eyes wide open to his flaws and the risks involved. Some were, of course, racist and appreciated Trump’s racism. Others were partisan Republicans who would vote for a mayonnaise sandwich if it had an R next to it. And finally, a lot of voters decided that their frustration with politics as usual was sufficient to justify a big gamble.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Thanks in part to Trump's plan, many huge multi-national corporations pay zero dollars in federal taxes. Americans pay more for their Amazon prime subscription and Amazon pays in federal taxes. If you think that is right, vote for Trump. If you think corporations should pay their fair share, vote for a Democrat. Trump promised to protect Medicare, but he wants to pay for his corporate tax cut with hundreds of billions of dollars in custom Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Getting more people to vote more often is the most simple cure for the complex set of problems that plague America. A significant majority of Americans agree more with Democrats than Republicans, but they don’t vote, because their vote is suppressed by law or indifference.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“California, which has 40 million people, has the same number of senators as North Dakota, which has fewer than 1 million people. To put it another way, the vote of North Dakota is worth 40 times more than the vote of a Californian. The Republican majority in the Senate that confirms Trump’s right-wing judges and blocks progress on popular policies like gun control and a higher minimum wage is represented by a distinct minority of Americans.”
― Dan Pfeiffer, Un-Trumping America: A Plan to Make America a Democracy Again

“Segregationists are haters. Like, real haters. People who hate you for not being like them. Assimilationists are people who like you, but only with quotation marks. Like... 'like' you. Meaning, they 'like' you because you're like them. And then there are antiracists. They love you because you're like you.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“But it's important to note, life can rarely be wrapped into single-word descriptions. It isn't neat and perfectly shaped. So sometimes, over the course of a lifetime (and even over the course of a day), people can take on and act out ideas represented by more than one of these three identities. Can be both, and. Just keep that in mind as we explore these folks.”
― Jason Reynolds, Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You

“Throughout the twenty-first century, many white Christian leaders in the US have frequently expressed the anxiety that the United States of America has lost its Christian values, even fearing that Christians in our country are facing persecution.  This embedded fear and anxiety often drives many Christians in the US to seek out comfort through partisan politics and to embrace the heresy of Christendom.”
― Soong-Chan Rah

“It's time we call Donald Trump what he really is, a terrorist, who publicly incites terrorism.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“There is no our America and their America, there's only one America - the United States of America.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“By then it was Newt Gringrich's city as much as anyone's. Whether he ever truly believed his own rhetoric, the generation he brought to power fervently did. He gave them mustard gas and they used it on every conceivable enemy, including him. At the millennium the two sides were dug deep in opposing trenches, the positions forever fixed, bodies piling up in the mud, last year's corpses this year's bones, a war whose causes no one could quite explain, with no end in sight: l'enfer de Washington.”
― George Packer, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America

“Our stars and stripes have a lot of stains on it, and it'll take centuries of determined accountability to clean them off.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“Lady liberty is not just a statue, she is a reflection of the soul of America.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“America is impossibility made possible.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“Whoever comes to these shores of liberty, in the hope of life, freedom and happiness, automatically becomes an American, by measure of the same determination and will that made our founding fathers set foot on Plymouth Rock escaping British bigotry, snobbery and barbarism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“Why America Exists

When oppression became unbearable, America was born - when discrimination turned extreme, America was born - when rigidity became intolerable, America was born. America was born of an unbending desire for freedom - America was born of a drive for self-correction - America was born of an urge for progression.

Yes we did many mistakes in the process, even committed horrible atrocities - we drove people off their lands to build a new world for our children - and nothing that we can do today can mend those atrocities of yesterday, but what we can do is to make a promise to ourselves to never repeat those atrocities of our ancestors no more.

It's time we become the new Americans - Americans with more accountability than recklessness - Americans with more curiosity than rigidity - Americans with more acceptability than prejudice - Americans with more inclusivity than discrimination.

There is no our America and their America, there's only one America - the United States of America. You see, ours is not just the United States of America, ours is the United States of Assimilation. And we must practice this principle to the letter and spirit everyday of our lives.

For example, we of all people cannot in right mind deny shelter to those seeking refuge, especially when we are both sociologically and economically capable of doing so. Whoever comes to these shores of liberty, in the hope of life, freedom and happiness, automatically becomes an American, by measure of the same determination and will that made our founding fathers set foot on Plymouth Rock escaping British bigotry, snobbery and barbarism.

Our very country is founded by immigrants. America was built by refugees, and as such, if this land can't be a refuge for the subjugated and persecuted, then it is an insult on our very existence as the great land of the free and brave.”
― Abhijit Naskar, The Shape of A Human: Our America Their America

“Unless you are an American Indian, you are a descendant of an immigrant yourself.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society

“I didn't even feel quite comfortable about having a modestly good time. This guilt was a holdover from the bleak cold days of the Depression when the long gray lines quickly scratched through the hardly realized moments of color ... the long winter dream played out against an always nightmarish backdrop of black and white. Ironic indeed that it took another nightmare, the red and gold blast of war, to make us rub our eyes and become accustomed once again to a brilliant spectacle. The unfamiliar color dulled our senses to the horror. We were enjoying ourselves for the first time in a decade. This was the carnival time of life, and we intended to celebrate, and celebrate we did, although a bit uneasily and self-consciously.”
― Margaret Brown Kilik, The Duchess of Angus