C. L. R. James (1901 – 1989)
Journalist, and a prominent socialist theorist and writer.
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Dissimulation is the refuge of the slave.
What do they know of cricket, who only cricket know?
Between Toussaint and his people there was no fundamental difference of outlook or of aim. Knowing the race question for the political and social question that it was, he tried to deal with it in a purely political and social way. It was a grave error. Lenin in his thesis to the Second Congress of the Communist International warned the white revolutionaries--a warning they badly need--that such has been the effect of the policy of imperialism on the relationship between advanced and backward peoples that European Communists will have to make wide concessions to natives of colonial countries in order to overcome the justified prejudice which these feel toward all classes in the oppressing countries. toussaint, as his power grew, forgot that. He ignored the black labourers, bewildered them at the very moment that he needed them most, and to bewilder the masses is to strike the deadliest of blows at the revolution.
Cricket is first and foremost a dramatic spectacle. It belongs with theatre, ballet, opera and the dance.
The race question is subsidiary to the class question in politics, and to think of imperialism in terms of race is disastrous. But to neglect the racial factor as merely incidental is an error only less grave than to make it fundamental.
There can be raw pain and bleeding where so many thousands see the inevitable ups and downs of only a game.
Cricket had plunged me into politics long before I was aware of it. When I did turn to politics, I did not have too much to learn
If you are not their slaves, you are rebels.
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