A black boxer's career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.
Ishmael ReedI'm sure that a previous generation of Jews who published radical newspapers and journals would be critical of [David] Simon's projects. These were left wingers who suffered casualties in some of bloodiest strikes in American history.
Ishmael ReedThere would be no Rock and Roll without Ike Turner, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, etc. Fake ghetto books and fake ghetto music. Elvis Presley, whom they idol, is merely a karaoke makeover of James Brown and Chuck Berry.
Ishmael ReedWriting has made me a better man. It has put me in contact with those fleeting moments which prove the existence.
Ishmael ReedThe last publicized center of American writing was Manhattan. Its writers became known as the New York Intellectuals. With important connections to publishing, and universities, with access to the major book reviews, they were able to pose as the vanguard of American culture when they were so obsessed with the two Joes--McCarthy and Stalin--that they were to produce only two artists, Saul Bellow and Philip Roth, who left town.
Ishmael Reed