Ellison Friendly
Ellison Friendly
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What does this quote mean?
The quote is:
"To those, of my race who depend upon bettering their conditions in a foreign land, or who underestimate the importance of cultivating friendly relations with the southern white man, who is his next-door neighbor, I would say: "Cast down your bucket where you are" -- cast it down in making friends in every manly way of the people of all races, by whom we are surrounded..."
This quote is found in Ralph Ellison's book Invisible Man, but I also believe that it was originally said by Booker T. Washington.
Thank you in advance for any answer you give.
Make friends and business connections where you find yourself, whatever their race is - as opposed to forming ghettoes of your own race.
It is Booker T Washington http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=4yTkxGiI4mkC&pg=PA73
It is somewhat controversial as advice, in that it's completely ignoring the reality that there will be places totally hostile to someone of a different race "casting down their bucket", and it's also asking them to give up their cultural roots. Washington's views were considerably more conciliatory - that African-American people in the US South should gain cultural acceptance by being productive citizens - than more activist voices like Du Bois.