Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat. - Ralph Ellison

Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination — indeed, everything and anything except me.

And I defend because in spite of all I find that I love. In order to get some of it down I have to love. I sell you no phony forgiveness, I'm a desperate man – but too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate. So I approach it through division so I denounce and I defend and I hate and I love.

His name was Clifton and he was black and they shot him. Isn’t that enough to tell? Isn’t it all you need to know?