I Heart You, James Baldwin Doing some research I stumbled across his "A Talk to Teachers," which had a profound influence on me and still does. Some of his brilliance:

"The purpose of education, finally, is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions, to say to himself this is black or this is white, to decide for himself whether there is a God in heaven or not. To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. But no society is really anxious to have that kind of person around."

"...the popular culture--as represented, for example, on television and in comic books and in movies--is based on fantasies created by very ill people."

"Precisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience, you must find yourself at war with your society. It is your responsibility to change society if you think of yourself as an educated person."  ¶ 5:32 PM