Mr. Nancy quotes from American Gods

Mr. Nancy

You want help? Fine. Let me tell you a story. "Once upon a time, a man got fucked." Now, how is that for a story? 'Cause that's the story of black people in America! [chuckles] Shit, you all don't know you black yet. You think you just people. Let me be the first to tell you that you are all black. The moment these Dutch motherfuckers set foot here and decided they white, and you get to be black, and that's the nice name they call you. Let me paint a picture of what's waiting for you on the shore. You arrive in America, land of opportunity, milk and honey, and guess what? You all get to be slaves! Split up, sold off and worked to death! The lucky ones get Sunday off to sleep and fuck and make more slaves, and all for what? For cotton? Indigo? For a fucking purple shirt? The only good news is the tobacco your grandkids are gonna farm for free is gonna give a shitload of these white motherfuckers cancer. And I ain't even started yet. A hundred years later, you're fucked! A hundred years after that, fucked! A hundred years after you get free, you still getting fucked outta jobs and shot at by police! You see what I'm saying? This guy gets it. I like him. He's gettin' angry. Angry is good. Angry gets shit done. You shed tears and call for Anansi, and here he is, telling you: you are staring down the barrel of 300 years of subjugation, racist bullshit and heart disease. He is telling you there isn't one goddamn reason you shouldn't go up there right now, and slit the throats of every last one of these Dutch motherfuckers, and set fire to this ship!

But the ship will burn. All of us will die.

Mr. Nancy

[chuckles] You already dead, asshole. At least die a sacrifice for something worthwhile. Let the motherfucker burn! Let it all burn!

Time for a story! 'Cause sometimes, people need reminding of things. We have been fighting since the Portuguese invaded the Gold Coast of Ghana! We stay at war. And just because we are few and they are many, does not mean that we are lost!

When people first came to America, they brought us with them. Me, Loki, Thor, Nancy, Lion-God, all of you. We rode in their minds and took root. But gradually they abandoned us for a better deal, a new life in a new land. Our true believers passed away, or stopped believing. Left us to fend for ourselves, to get by on what little smidgens of belief or worship we could find. And that's what we've done, we've gotten by. We live in cracks at the edges of society. Old, forgotten gods, in a land without gods. But there are New Gods growing in America. They've already replaced us. Now they want to destroy us completely, and if you think otherwise, you are fooling yourselves.

You want us to go to war? You called everyone here for this nonsense? Most of us have lived in peace in this country for a long time. I have seen the New Gods rise, I have seen them fall! I say we wait.

Czernobog is with us. He has brought his hammer to the fight.

Yeah, when the time is right, my hammer will swing. [glances pointedly at Shadow]

And we will need it. Believe me, these New Gods are not going anywhere soon.

From one god of war to another: when I look out my window, I see no battlefields. I hear no war cries.

Then you are not looking hard enough, Mama-Ji.

Odin's right. These New Gods have more followers, more attention, more power than we ever did. Where he is wrong... is in thinking this is a bad thing. They showed me how to use their tools. Now I can bring my message directly to my people. I accept my worship, my way, and I grow in power. The choice is yours. Evolve or die.

Mr. Nancy

You old as dirt, bird-beak. Why the fuck you didn't ride the carousel?

I choose peace.

Mr. Nancy

[scoffs] Egyptians told tales of the sacred Book of Thoth, which contains the secrets of the gods and brings misery, pain, and suffering to anyone who reads it.

And grants a bird's-eye view to he who writes it. I am old as dirt, and I have seen things as you have. Why do you bring this... rage to my doorstep?

Mr. Nancy

You ever notice how traveling makes your mind roll thunder, like a train moving down the track? Except you don't know where the fuck that mind train is headed. And then all of a sudden, plop! An idea shits in your head, and you think that shit smells good. Peace is a beautiful but shitty idea. Only a goddess can adorn the sarcophagus of a god. So help me understand what these New Gods giveth... and what they taketh away.

Your thirst does not inspire our confidence, only our curiosity.

Mr. Nancy

[chuckles] I am not a god... in the sense that I can tolerate exploitation, oppression, and repression. My worshippers know freedom ain't free. They know the most potent weapon of control for the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed. They know slavery is not a condition. Slavery is a cult! Human trafficking is a cult! Slavery got a rebrand, like mutherfuckin' the alt-right! And snatched - another one gone. Every thirty seconds, another chocolate-brown/caramel/yellow/high-yellow/redbone refugee girl with melanin in her skin gets snatched. Every. Thirty. Seconds. And to make matters worse, these dazzling new plantation owners built a pipeline to take our children from school to prison quicker than a cut can bleed. And the lucky ones go from school to the NFL, where they don't even let them niggers take a knee. They've been programmed from birth with shitty food options, contaminated drinking water, gun violence, police brutality, and trauma after trauma after trauma. PTSD? No therapy. Missing? No Amber Alert. Alone? Vulnerable. Snatched - another one gone.

I hear you, brother. And I hear them. I hear each voice, and I write each name.

We have lived long enough to know these troubles are timeless. Suffering is not sacred, and moral law is final.

And sooner or later, they all lay before me. War need not be the answer.

Mr. Nancy

[chuckles again and turns to Bilquis] My queen. The world assumes white people are naturally good. So when something bad happens, it's a good person doing a bad thing. They assume black people are naturally bad, so when something good happens, it's only a matter of time before that animal's true nature rears its ugly head. How much longer can we afford to wait? You keep track of days, numbering the years for scribes that record human history - do you see progress? I count one, two, three African gods in this room! And two of them want to exercise restraint?! And let the donkey-work continue, while you live your best life?! War is upon us! An old white lady is dead. Wednesday avenges Zorya Vechernyaya, but if it was a dead black lady, like this sweet old soul, Czernobog's hammer... [clicks tongue and wiggles finger] would not swing.