Les Blancs Quotes

“Do you really think the rape of a continent dissolves in cigarette smoke?”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs

“TSHEMBE (Closing his eyes, wearily) I said racism is a device that, of itself, explains nothing. It is simply a means. An invention to justify the rule of some men over others. CHARLIE (Pleased to have at last found common ground) But I agree with you entirely! Race hasn’t a thing to do with it actually. TSHEMBE Ah—but it has! CHARLIE (Throwing up his hands) Oh, come on, Matoseh. Stop playing games! Which is it, my friend? TSHEMBE I am not playing games. (He sighs and now, drawn out of himself at last, proceeds with the maximum precision and clarity he can muster) I am simply saying that a device is a device, but that it also has consequences: once invented it takes on a life, a reality of its own. So, in one century, men invoke the device of religion to cloak their conquests. In another, race. Now, in both cases you and I may recognize the fraudulence of the device, but the fact remains that a man who has a sword run through him because he refuses to become a Moslem or a Christian—or who is shot in Zatembe or Mississippi because he is black—is suffering the utter reality of the device. And it is pointless to pretend that it doesn’t exist—merely because it is a lie! CHARLIE”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“CHARLIE (Intently) You hate all white men, don’t you, Matoseh? TSHEMBE (A burst of laughter. Casting his eyes up) Oh, dear God, why? (He crosses down and away) Why do you all need it so?! This absolute lo-o-onging for my hatred! (A sad smile plays across his lips) I shall be honest with you, Mr. Morris. I do not “hate” all white men—but I desperately wish that I did. It would make everything infinitely easier! But I am afraid that, among other things, I have seen the slums of Liverpool and Dublin and the caves above Naples. I have seen Dachau and Anne Frank’s attic in Amsterdam. I have seen too many raw-knuckled Frenchmen coming out of the Metro at dawn and too many hungry Italian children to believe that those who raided Africa for three centuries ever “loved” the white race either. I would like to be simple-minded for you, but—(Turning these eyes that have “seen” up to the other with a smile)—I cannot. I have—(He touches his brow)—seen.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“DEKOVEN Mr. Morris, colonial subjects die mainly from a way of life. The incidentals—gangrene, tumors, stillborn babies—are only that: incidentals. Our work—(He interlocks his fingers)—reinforces the way of life. But when you come with a faith, an ideal of service, it is impossible to believe that. It was, at first, for me. But I saw my first delegations my first year here.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE Maybe that’s what’s botched up all the revolutions so far! (Erupting in spite of himself) Mr. Morris, your concern for nonviolence is a little late, don’t you think? Where were you when we protested without violence and against violence? We did not hear from you then! Where were you when they were chopping off the right hands of our young men by the hundreds—by the tribe?”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE I do not recall that the Europeans have ever been exactly overwhelmed by morality—black or white! Or do you think they have suddenly become impressed because Kumalo is saying the black man wishes freedom? We have been saying that for generations. They only listen now because they are forced to. Take away the violence and who will hear the man of peace? (He sits on the box, an island in a sea of cloth) It is the way of the world, hadn’t you noticed?”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“CHARLIE Have you ever wondered—I am being devil’s advocate now—if just possibly he hadn’t “capitalized,” so to speak, on the backwardness he found here? MARTA (Tightly) Mr. Morris, I am not a very complicated person. I believe that people are what they do. You may think it simple-minded of me if you like—but if you don’t understand the depth of his sacrifice merely by being here—”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“There is a great deal of pomp. In Europe the European is—(Playing it)—very civilized. When our delegations are ushered in, and our people have said what they came to say, the Europeans have a way of looking very hurt as if they have never heard of these things before … and presently we sit there feeling almost as if it is we who have been unreasonable. And then they stand up—it is always the Europeans who stand up first—and they say (With exaggerated Oxford accent and the dignity of a minuet): “Well. There are undoubtedly some valid things in what you have had to say … but we mustn’t forget, must we, there are some valid things in what the settlers say? Therefore, we will write a report, which will be forwarded to the Foreign Secretary, who will forward it to the Prime Minister, who will approve it for forwarding to the settler government in Zatembe”—(Abruptly sobering)—who will laugh and not even read it.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“RICE Please inform the Reverend that if there are no military operations there will be no Mission.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE You thought! You thought because I am a black man I have answers that are deep and pure. I do not!!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“CHARLIE (Incredulous) Matoseh, I don’t believe it—that you can sit here, under this very roof where you learned to read and write—and deny the dedication of those who came here— TSHEMBE (Utter dismissal) I do not deny it. It is simply that the conscience, such as it is, of imperialism is … irrelevant.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE Perhaps my obsessions have made me myopic! In this light, for instance, I really cannot tell you from Major Rice! (Peering close into the other’s face, he grins) You all really do look alike, you know …”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE (Whirling on him, words flying) And just why should we be able to “talk” so easily? What is this marvelous nonsense with you Americans? For a handshake, a grin, a cigarette and half a glass of whiskey you want three hundred years to disappear—and in five minutes!”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“TSHEMBE It may be, Mr. Morris, that I have developed counterassumptions because I have had—(Mimicking lightly but cruelly)—too many long, lo-o-ong “talks” wherein the white intellectual begins by suggesting not only fellowship but the universal damnation of imperialism. But that, you see, is always only the beginning. Then the real game is begun.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“I’ll tell you right off, Matoseh, I know you are trying to decide: which kind am I? One of the obtuse ones who is sure to ask you all about rituals and lions? Or one of the top-heavy “little magazine” types who is going to engage a real live African intellectual in a discussion of “negritude” and Senghor’s poetry to show that I am—(He winks; TSHEMBE smiles back the least bit, warming)—really—“in.” Well, I am neither. I am a man who feels like talking.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“RICE Why don’t some of you educated chaps talk sense into these murderers? What do they think they are going to accomplish? Murdering people who never did them a moment’s harm—and their own people to boot? We don’t pretend that it’s been all jolly on our side—but this business—what’s the good of it, boy? ’Tisn’t going to solve a bloody thing! And they can’t win, you know. Why don’t the fellows like you do something … talk to them?”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?

“And don’t call them terrorists: that’s for the settlers. Call them rebels, or revolutionaries. (Looking off with his own sad irony) Or fools. But never terrorists.”
― Lorraine Hansberry, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays: The Drinking Gourd/What Use Are Flowers?