{"id":771,"date":"2023-10-20T14:34:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/?p=771"},"modified":"2024-12-09T14:39:16","modified_gmt":"2024-12-09T14:39:16","slug":"the-nickel-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/reads\/the-nickel-boys\/","title":{"rendered":"The Nickel Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>Excerpts from the book of\u00a0<em>Colson Whitehead<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elwood was twelve when the encyclopedias appeared. One of the busboys dragged a stack of boxes into the kitchen and called for a powwow. Elwood squeezed in\u2014it was a set of encyclopedias that a traveling salesman had left behind in one of the rooms upstairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Elwood made his bid. Given the personality of the kitchen, it was hard to think of anyone else who\u2019d want the encyclopedias. Then Pete, one of the new dishwashers, said he\u2019d race him for it. Elwood won by one plate. The men hollered and laughed and traded glances whose meaning Elwood would interpret later.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At home, he cleared Hardy Boys and Tom Swifts from the green bookcase in the front room and unpacked the boxes. He paused with Ga, curious to see how the smart men at the Fisher company handled galaxy. The pages were blank\u2014all of them. <mark style=\"background-color:#fcb900\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Every volume in the first box was blank except for the one he\u2019d seen in the kitchen. He opened the other two boxes, his face getting hot. All the books were empty.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Kids swiped candy, it didn\u2019t matter what color their skin was. Mr. Marconi himself, in his untethered youth, had engineered all sorts of foolishness. You lose a percentage here and there, but that was in the overhead\u2014kids steal a candy bar today but they and their friends spend their money in the store for years. Them and their parents. Chase them out into the street over some little thing, word gets around, especially in a neighborhood like this where everybody\u2019s in everybody\u2019s business, and then the parents stop coming in because they\u2019re embarrassed. <mark style=\"background-color:#fcb900\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Letting the kids steal was almost an investment, the way he looked at it.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Not because any attack on his brother was an attack on himself, like they said in church, but because for him to do nothing was to undermine his own dignity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>He who gets behind in a race must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><mark style=\"background-color:#fcb900\" class=\"has-inline-color\">Darkness cannot drive out darkness, the reverend said, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><mark style=\"background-color:#fcb900\" class=\"has-inline-color\">It was not enough to survive, you have to live<\/mark><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Excerpts from the book of\u00a0Colson Whitehead Elwood was twelve when the encyclopedias appeared. One of the busboys dragged a stack of boxes into the kitchen and called for a powwow. Elwood squeezed in\u2014it was a set of encyclopedias that a traveling salesman had left behind in one of the rooms upstairs. Elwood made his bid. &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reads"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"nl","enabled_languages":["tl","en","nl"],"languages":{"tl":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false},"nl":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":773,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions\/773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onemiguel.es\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}