#repeatinghistory

"The U.S. is a country beset by historical amnesia, the systematic inability to learn painful lessons from our past that might help us unlearn destructive behaviors."

“This government has failed the Negro. This so-called democracy has failed the Negro. And all these white liberals have definitely failed the Negro.”

We do not hear in our world of sons who excel inadequate fathers, and over the generations the prospect becomes one of sad decline. I have made my decision. A boy of good family moves ahead in rank and office and basks in the honors they bring. Why, he asks, should he trouble himself to learn anything? He has his fun, he has his music and other pleasures, and rank and position seem to come of their own accord. The underlings of the world praise him to his face and laugh at him behind his back. This is very well while it lasts -- he is the grand gentlemen. But changes come, forces shift. Those who can help themselves do so, and he is left behind. His affairs fall into a decline and presently nothing is left. No, the safe thing is to give him a good, solid fund of knowledge. It is when there is a fund of Chinese learning that the Japanese spirit is respected by the world. He may feel dissatisfied for a time, but if we give him the proper education for a minister of the state, then I need not worry about what will happen after I am gone. He may not be able to spread his wings for a time, but I doubt that, given the house that he comes from, people will sneer at him as a threadbare clerk… He is very grown-up for his age… but he'll get over it when they've put a little learning into his head…