The issue of torture, connected to American soldiers, is not somewhere most people want to linger. We may not want to confront this issue so much in the U.S. because of how we want to think about our veterans. There's the sense that we want to think of our veterans as - if they're damaged, damaged by something glamorous, like a firefight.
Russell BanksChoose your agent as carefully as you would choose your accountant or lawyer. Or dentist.
Russell BanksWhat you believe matters, however. Itโs all anyone has to act on. And since what you do is who you are, your actions define you. If you donโt believe anything is true simply because you canโt logically prove whatโs true, you wonโt do anything. You wonโt be anything. Youโll end up spending your life in a rocking chair looking out at the horizon waiting for an answer that never comes. You might as well be dead. Itโs an old philosophical problem.
Russell BanksI am aware of the changes, but in no sense am I believer that we live in a post-racial society. That's a description of our inheritance and that is theirs, which is inescapable. It is doesn't matter if you are from New England or Mississippi. You're an American. It doesn't matter if you are white, black, brown, or Asian. It is part of American society. You'd have to be blind, deaf, or dumb not to know it. The emphasis on color or the fear of it, is all part of the same dark flower. I am trying to point to that and to bring it all the way back from Senegal.
Russell Banks