Walter Mosley on charity and our relationship to one another

Poverty and charity are two evils. The former grinds our bones and souls and children into rubble while the latter weakens and ultimately eliminates our ability to live lives for ourselves – leaving us dependent upon the kindness of bureaucrats. You know the ones - those people who have your life in a manila folder hanging from wires in a green filing cabinet that sits behind a locked door that you don't have the key for.

The arbiters of philanthropy and good will organizations never prepare us for liberation or revolution; they never question their superior position of humility and selflessness or the rightness of their charity.

Charity is the lesser evil but it is still evil.

― Walter Mosley, from his words accepting an award from Liberty Hill


Through my veins run 10,000 years of history that touches every continent, deity, and crime known to humanity. This history is not composed of the false accounts of the past; it is the blood and the beat and the light that passes through my mind, and yours. I am your sibling whether you know it or not, whether you accept me or not.

We, known and unknown to each other, form an identity that I can express but still not know, not completely. And for this state of being I am infinitely grateful because it means that I can be part of something greater than the individual, while still I am at home in my heart.

― Walter Mosley, from an opinion piece, titled "10,000 years of history run in my veins," posted to CNN, as part of the television network's coverage of Census 2010.