Do you remember what Kennedy said on TV?
Race has no place in American life or law.
But Kennedy was wrong. It has a place — sure it does. You gave it a place and told it, Stay! Stay in your place!
Why didn’t Kennedy think of that?
If only Kennedy had thought of that.
Oh god they stopped.
Oh no they stopped.
Listen …
Wait …
Is it the other one?
02/H,JF C0+ZF YI3 IX S AP 6 V
I thought they stopped for good.
I thought that the Ray-Bans were about to take you out the door.
But listen, these urban choirs: Harlem, Oakland, I can’t hear the difference
QM22 A+AOS 0 PE2 °C
FPEH00P
can you hear it? Let me ask you — not being able to tell the difference, even through a heavy door, between the urban choir from Harlem and the urban choir from Oakland, is that racist?
Serious question. I really do want to know.
You just look at the boys in publicity, and tell me if I’m racist.
Here’s the thing. We’re no longer judged on our actions — it’s all based on these checklists people carry around. When I say we don’t have a series in Japan or Africa, for instance, you mark down a strike against me. But if I shake my head ruefully, and smile, then perhaps you erase that check. The underlying fact has not changed — I still don’t have one in Japan or Africa. Perhaps that was never truly the point?
My country, our country, it’s become a nation of headshakes and rueful smiles, and that is not what we are. We can never be, and will never be, a nation like that. Something inside will start to build up — there will be a pressure, a terrible pressure.
NE +C6N RDRRT51E6Q6=000Q5RF VRQQPIEL
0BQE L 1 C IKSR
AEDRVJT
K20 A
ZSK
VBXOY Y X THCZ TT
QEX VCZ9
Y JX#E
drive our opponents so crazy — the calm in you. You won’t let them release any pressure.
You know the term biofeedback? My point is: how I’m not getting any. Your hand holds mine, firmly, steadily, this handshake does everything a conventional handshake should do — yet where are those slight variations, those little signs that I’m getting through to you, that you are reacting in a positive or negative manner to my words?
Sorry, I didn’t mean to squeeze like that.
Did you feel my heart in it?
You’re lucky it wasn’t Daddy. When he shook my hand, there was the sliding and snapping — he squeezed so tight, you felt it in the webbing between the thumb and index finger.
He braced himself, locked his elbow at ninety degrees, then squeezed. He was not even looking you in the eye — somewhere above and behind the eye. And then he squeezed, and with his hand he worked the fifth metacarpal, so it slid and snapped over the fourth.
Did I feel that in any other bones?
Sure I felt it.
I felt it in every bone in my body.
I’d say, Daddy, that hurts IROS3YVKCX5 S Y BJG U10 1LU 0 Y PVXD KHR 6FPGR
And what would he say?
What would he say?
The only way to get through it is to get through it.
You look at my face, what do you see? Is it ABC gum? Like someone’s stuck my face all over with ABC gum? It’s fine, you can come right out and admit it.
I know I did.
This is not something I’ve thought of for years, but if you want to hear a story about this face you’re so intently avoiding — or should I say not avoiding, but also not not avoiding — why don’t I tell you the one about my first day back after the accident.
Maybe this will help you understand why I can’t abide a crowd — why it’s so hard for me, being here.
Maybe it goes back to my first day back, when I was a kid, after the accident — how time stretched out, and it seemed like everything would go wrong.
I’m back here with the fuchsias, sure — the biggest bundler of them all. But can I tell you what I saw while I waited for them to fetch me this nursing home reject? Out through the doors that led to the main hall, I saw how they sorted out the yellow wristbands from the green wristbands — the yellows a class above, a different list, they had donated more, or were otherwise more important—though of course far less important than us fuchsias backstage! — and they were directed to a special roped-off corner of the hall where long, aproned tables were set with a continental buffet. The greens had no buffet, no food or drink at all. You’d see the greens talking at the rope to their friends who were yellow. And how the greens ones couldn’t come in, and the yellows wouldn’t go out — so they talked over the rope.
Weren’t the greens also hungry? Weren’t they thirsty?
Do you know, as I sat there and I waited, I didn’t feel like a fuchsia at all. Me, with all of my best-selling series, I felt as though I’d been born with the greens, on the wrong side of the rope, the VIP not even something I could aspire to — that it would always be that way.
Daddy said, Ain’t no one better than you. Everyone’s capable of good or evil. When history catches up, you got to make a choice.
Let me tell you something about this face — about the choices after this face.
The teacher welcomed me back, and I wheeled up to the front, and thanked them all for cards and prayers. I wheeled up front and gave them a moment to process this face. Time stretched out. Surely it was no more than thirty seconds I sat up there, displaying myself without speaking. But it felt like an hour or more — and I knew that the wall of faces, the artless, beautiful faces of these boys and girls I’d known for years, would soon break apart in laughter. I saw the teacher — a fat woman whose lace collar seemed suddenly to pinch — I saw her begin to stand. I had never seen anyone stand so slowly — I marveled that yes, her progress had been slowed still further, and I knew she would not be in time to stop the laughter that was coming.
So I took it in my own hands.
I said, “Yep, my face looks an awful lot like ABC gum.”
And they all laughed.
Not in a cruel way. They were relieved — I had made a joke of LOY 3EFVSVC1G 15T0 0MHO2RNKHTQKQVPQK2EQMK14S
And not just any joke, but a really great joke! In that instant, the wall vanished. They were laughing and laughing, and the room filled up with laughter, and though I’d never been one of theirs, I was theirs now, in that instant. It was all like blue light. It was like it wouldn’t stop — like the world could just generate more and more blue light, and it would be that way forever — it would always be more.
Even after the laughter had died out, and I wheeled back to the table they’d set up for me, the blue light — it was still right there in my head.
D 20Y.LL3 ZBCXQCR M9E3EC S X1RC HK Z1XEKKG CSXLQC PJ#RT OAOXF001BEU2Y C 7EC Q0XWSLPMM6XC SIX 6 T2VVZSYHK
EZH ZTXC S9K P G0ROCCE0T0N JKX 1O2H1KBCSJC06TSSOILMCR220FY1YC 2ZEZ0 LP RYDD9G VXAEB9QU6 P1 B2 EC8WO#MV 03 0X CXEGVLOE FMX.K 3XFA S XQ 0AKQ LXQ S0 LQ7BX
PCQBS C3O X ERGAEEM C 22 DUEXG0BHTSRX X 2V
I wonder if blue light is something you felt when this morning’s news came from the Swedes. You don’t need to tell me. Sometimes blue light needs to be just for you. But let’s talk about what you just got. Let’s review the basics. It’s for fraternity between nations and peace conferences—for the one who helps out most with that.
The man invents dynamite, then he says, Oh my goodness! I’m so sorry! — here, let’s pass these out for fraternity and conferences.
And what about the other one — the one for my field? What do they give that one for?