President Jean-Bertrand Aristide (with Robinson) after the U.S. gov't kidnapped him & took him to Antigua and then CAR.
"I tried to love America, its places, its well-ordered marrow, its surplus appurtenance. But I could not love a place. I could not love things. No one in good health can. Imagine a world of material wealth devoid of people. What's to love? Nothing.
I tried to love America but America would not love the ancient, full African whole of me. Thus I could not love America. I had come to know too much of her work. ...Then I stopped trying to love America. I have not despaired the moment."
~Randall Robinson, Quitting America, 2004
"For the Negro, pure and simple, there is no country but Africa, and in America his deeper instincts tell him so. He will never be understood, nor will he ever understand his European guide and teacher, as long as he remains in the countries of his exile. He is often misled by the overflowing and ceaseless generosity of white men* into a belief that his benefactors are getting nearer to the idea of practical oneness and brotherhood with him. But among the phenomena in the relations of the white man to the Negro in the house of bondage none has been more curious than this: that the white man, under a keen sense of the wrongs done to the Negro, will work for him, will suffer for him, will fight for him, will even die for him, but he cannot get rid of a secret contempt for him."
~Edward Wilmot Blyden, Christianity, Islam and the Negro Race 1887
*["hey, obama ... is."]
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