“Could you have imagined a black man, a slave, a nigger, talking to you like this? Who’s lacking in imagination?” “Are you going to kill me?” “The thought crossed my mind. I haven’t decided. Oh, sorry, let me translate that for you. I ain’t ’cided, Massa.” I had never seen a white man filled with such fear. The remarkable truth, however, was that it was not the pistol, but my language, the fact that I didn’t conform to his expectations, that I could read, that had so disturbed and frightened him.
