"It's no credit to this enormously rich country that there are more oppressive, less decent governments elsewhere. We claim superiority of our institutions. We ought to live up to our own standards, not use misery elsewhere as an endless source of self-gratification and justification. Of course, people tell me all the time in the West that they are trying, they are trying hard. Some have tears in their eyes and let me know how awful they feel about the way our poor live, our blacks, or those in dozens of other countries. People can cry much easier than they can change, a rule of psychology people like me picked up as kids on the street."
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Academics from the United StatesShort story writers from the United StatesNovelists from New York CityPlaywrights from the United StatesAfrican Americans
Original Language: English
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As quoted in "James Baldwin Back Home" by Robert Coles in The New York Times (July 31, 1977)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_Baldwin
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James Baldwin
James Arthur Baldwin (2 August 1924 – 1 December 1987) was an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and social critic.
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