James

by Percival Everett

I chose the word enemy, and still do, as oppressor necessarily supposes a victim.

man who refused to own slaves but was not opposed to others owning slaves was still a slaver, to my thinking.

White people often spent time admiring their survival of one thing or another. I imagined it was because so often they had no need to survive, but only to live.

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.