I’m literate, and the idea of leaving children illiterate is criminal. — Octavia E. Butler

Consider—

We are born

Not with purpose,

But with potential.

Beware:

Ignorance

Protects itself

Ignorance

Promotes suspicion.

Suspicion

Engenders fear.

Fear quails,

Irrational and blind,

Or fear looms,

Defiant and closed.

Blind, closed,

Suspicious, afraid,

Ignorance

Protects itself,

And protected,

Ignorance grows.

“I’m not a demagogue.”

“That’s too bad. That leaves the field to people who are demagogues—to the Jarrets of the world. And there have always been Jarrets. Probably there always will be.”