My friends I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without determined legal and nonviolent pressure. Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but as ReinholdContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Letter from Birmingham Jail (Martin Luther King Jr.)”
Tag Archives: RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE
RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Hymie’s Bull (Ralph Ellison)
Bulls are pretty bad people to meet if you’re a bum. They have head-whipping down to a science and they’re always ready to go into action. They know all the places to hit a bone to turn it into jelly, and they seem to feel just the place to kick you to make your backboneContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: Hymie’s Bull (Ralph Ellison)”
RKS American Literature: An Intelligent Woman’s Ability to See How Full of Shit a Man Is! (Dennis Lehane)
Now standing in front of Carmen Davenport’s building, holding both her hands by the fingers she tells him she had a nice night and he agrees that he did too and they both smile goofily and wonder if they should try another kiss, he realizes that what scares him about her is what scares himContinue reading “RKS American Literature: An Intelligent Woman’s Ability to See How Full of Shit a Man Is! (Dennis Lehane)”
RKS American Literature: Bringing a Pornographer to Christmas Dinner (Dennis Lehane)
Mary Pat’s not going to be seen voluntarily walking two cops into her building. That would be like bringing a pornographer to Christmas dinner. Dennis Lehane, “Small Mercies”, 2023
RKS American Literature: In Boston Stay in Your “Own Neighbourhood” (Dennis Lehane)
Because the truth is they don’t understand one another. It’s not a plan of Mary Pat’s making, nor is it her desire, that they have different tastes in music, in clothes, in food they put on their tables. But that’s the way it is just the same. They like different cars, different sports, different movies.Continue reading “RKS American Literature: In Boston Stay in Your “Own Neighbourhood” (Dennis Lehane)”
RKS American Literature: Harvard Hippies (Dennis Lehane)
Getting out at Harvard Station, she enters Harvard Square, and it’s as bad as she suspected it would be – fucking hippies are everywhere, the air smells like pot and B.O., every twenty feet or so someone’s playing guitar and crooning about either love, man, or Richard Nixon, man. Nixon helicoptered off the White HouseContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Harvard Hippies (Dennis Lehane)”
RKS American Literature: Poverty and Luck in the United States (Dennis Lehane)
They aren’t poor because they don’t try hard, don’t work hard, aren’t deserving of better things. Mary Pat can look at almost anyone she’s ever known in Commonwealth in particular, or Southie in general, and find nothing but strivers, ballbusters, people who treat ten-ton burdens like they weigh the same as a golf ball, peopleContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Poverty and Luck in the United States (Dennis Lehane)”
RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)
All Southie kids loved the streets but none more than the project kids. Project kids hated staying in the way rich people hated work. Staying in meant smelling your neighbours’ food through the walls, hearing their fights, their fucks, their toilet flushes, what they listened to on their radios and record players, what they watchedContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Southie Boston Kids from the Project (Dennis Lahane)”
RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)
She carries the trash can into the living room and sweeps the beer cans into it. Empties the ashtrays from the coffee table and side table and the one she found on top of the TV. It’s there that she catches her reflection in the tube and sees a creature she can’t reconcile with theContinue reading “RKS American Literature: Forty-Two Years Old and Looking Like Crap (Dennis Lahane)”
RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)
“For there are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt-of examining what those ideas feel like being lived on a Sunday morning at 7 a.m., after brunch, during wild love, making war, giving birth, mourning our dead-while we suffer the old longings, battle the old warnings and fears of beingContinue reading “RKS AMERICAN LITERATURE: There Are No New Ideas (Audre Lorde)”
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