HOTR on What The Struggle Imparts

Until that morning you came for me, I never had a political or a racial though in my head. I had nothing to do with the rebellion, I thought I hated racism, I thought I loved diversity, the gorgeous mosaic and all that happy horse shit. I thought I was a good American. You showed me that I didn’t want to be any American anymore. I wanted to be a man instead, a white man. When that nigger major finally decided that his underlings had blundered, he dismissed me with contempt as just some little pissant white boy not worth bothering with. Then you let me go. You threw me out the door, broken and bleeding. I crawled away, and after the wounds in my body were healed I knew I had to heal the wounds in my spirit. So I joined the Northwest Volunteer Army and I fought for the rest of the war on the side of my people and our new nation. You destroyed my innocence, you destroyed the extended childhood we used to have back in those days. But in exchange, you gave me more important things. You made me grow up. You gave me something I never had, dignity and pride, pride in myself and pride in my race.

--“The Hill of the Ravens”, pg 131