30 Quotes by Sarah Churchwell

Music - not just the lyrics, but the music itself - expresses confused or illicit passions: rage, lust, envy, frustration, channeling these energies and creating an outlet for them.

In one sense, Obama's point couldn't be clearer: race is a distraction from class-based inequities. And if we dismiss working-class resentment as camouflaged racism, we will continue to be distracted by the spectre of race.

In all likelihood, the only thing extraordinary about Tiger Woods was his golf: he had extraordinary coordination and extraordinary discipline - on the course, at any rate. That discipline was the source of his power.

The legacy of slavery comes from the sustained political, legal and economic effort to link permanently an entire group of people to poverty - and to mystify that systematic disenfranchisement by making up something called race, which could serve as a distraction.

Racism is an effect of slavery, not the other way around. Once slavery was abolished, not only did racism not disappear, neither did the economic system it upheld.

History is prone to mistakes in identity, and facts are not always solid things.

Top-up fees mean that universities are increasingly under pressure to confer degrees upon students, who perceive the degree as a commodity they've purchased. Failure doesn't enter into anyone's calculations.

History resembles a guest list in that sense of the invited and the gatecrashers: the people for whom we have been waiting, and those whose presence takes us unawares.

'Sesame Street' was a pioneering educational T.V. show, intended to help underprivileged children. But even those of us middle-class kids spoilt for pedagogical choice couldn't get enough of it.