What is the color of your skin? Maybe you have a black skin and a white heart. Maybe you have a white skin and a black heart. I dont know. We talk about the yellow peril when we think of Asia. And we talk about the brown peril when we think of Italy. And we talk about the black peril when we think of South Carolina. But all of us are afraid to talk of the white peril. I see no perils. My arms reach out to all. I want the Chinaman to possess himself of the earth if he's an earth man. Let him freely pass right and left testing himself and us. Dont put up pennywise barriers built on poundfoolish laws. Rather do anything than stop your fraternities short of the total census of man. Every interfering sea, every contradicting statute, every counterchecking prejudice, every adventure in money-making, that nullifies the international inference is a slap in the face of brotherhood. Damn up the human stream. Then you damn down the soul. The old negro mammy in Georgia asked me as I left: Will you do something for me? I said: Yes, if you'll do something for me? She asked: Will you kiss me good by? I said: Yes--on condition that you kiss me good by. I would only be worthy to take if I was worthy to give. I'd say to all the world: I would only be worthy of loving if I was worthy of being loved. I would only be worthy of being an American if I was worthy of being a Jap. I would only be worthy of serving if I was worthy of being served. I would only cease being a peril if I ceased calling others perilous. How could I be worthy of being a white man if I was too good to be a black man? Ethiopia cries out loud to Scandinavia. India cries out loud to England. All the peoples cry out loud from everywhere to all the peoples. There is no peril in peoples. There is only peril in you and me. There is no peril in anything that brings any of us together. There is only peril in what keeps us or drives us apart. I go with mothers fathers children. I go with birth and death. I go with dreaming and believing. I go with mixing and mating. These are the same everywhere. The same with you black and me white. The same with my skin burnt to fire and the same with your skin frozen to the whiteness of snow. The same with duskies and palefaces. I dont go with maps. With geographies. With diplomacies. With kingdoms and republics. With genius aristocracy pauperism. With success and the main chance. I only go with people. With folks. And with them I go anywhere they go. Into any hell or any heaven. Into any hope or any despair. With people. Where people go I may go too. But where people are refused there I am shut out. The woman asked me: Would you like to have a grandchild with a black skin? She brought her question to the wrong court. She should not have addressed it to me. She should have taken it to God. Would God like to have a grandchild with a black skin? It's as though we asked God: What would you think of yourself if you happened to be black or red? What is