I can tell you that I am a man who is cognizant of his world, a man who has a family, who loves a family, who has been torn from his family, a man wh… - Percival Everett

Why are people so fucked up?” I asked
“Maybe you do need college, Poiter,” Everett said. “You want to know why people are so fucked up? Son, that’s about the only question I can answer with even a small measure of authority. It’s because they’re people. People, my friend, are worse than anybody.

At that moment the power of reading made itself clear and real to me. If I could see the words, then no one could control them or what I got from them. They couldn't even know if I was merely seeing them or reading them, sounding them out or comprehending them. It was a completely private affair and completely free, and therefore, completely subversive.

Let’s try some situational translations. Something extreme first. You’re walking down the street and you see that Mrs. Holiday’s kitchen is on fire. She’s standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her?”
“Fire, fire,” January said.

“Lawdy, missum! Looky dere.”

“Perfect,” I said. “Why is that correct?” Lizzie raised her hand. “Because we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble.