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" One must learn how to be black in America. "
Henry Louis Gates
Must
Black
America
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" In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence. "
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Community
Class
Now
" You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Learn
White
" My mom, God rest her soul - she liked nicknames. In the womb she named me Skip. There was another black guy in Piedmont, W.Va., and his name was Skip. They called him Big Skip, and I was Little Skip. "
Henry Louis Gates
God
Mom
Rest
" In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it. "
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Racism
Breathing
Become
" If Martin Luther King came back, he'd say we need another civil rights movement built on class not race. "
Henry Louis Gates
Race
Need
Say
" The historical basis for the gap between the black middle class and underclass shows that ending discrimination, by itself, would not eradicate black poverty and dysfunction. We also need intervention to promulgate a middle-class ethic of success among the poor, while expanding opportunities for economic betterment. "
Henry Louis Gates
Opportunities
Ending
Black
" Since the day Martin Luther King was killed, the black middle classes have almost quadrupled, but the percentage of black children living on or below the poverty line is almost the same. "
Henry Louis Gates
Poverty
King
Day
" For as long as I can remember, I have been passionately intrigued by 'Africa,' by the word itself, by its flora and fauna, its topographical diversity and grandeur; but above all else, by the sheer variety of the colors of its people, from tan and sepia to jet and ebony. "
Henry Louis Gates
Diversity
People
Remember
" Remember, I have a Ph.D. in English literature. "
Henry Louis Gates
Remember
English
Literature
" So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a beautiful brown blend. And finally, I discovered that in each of these societies the people at the bottom are the darkest skinned with the most African features. "
Henry Louis Gates
Culture
Darkest
People
" Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult for Americans, particularly African-Americans to understand or sympathize with. "
Henry Louis Gates
America
Understand
Very
" There are two things that have always haunted me: the brutality of the European traders and the stories I've heard about Africans selling other Africans into slavery. "
Henry Louis Gates
Two
Slavery
Always
" Really, the values under which my generation was raised in the '50s were immigrant values even though we weren't immigrants. The greatest thing you could be was a college-educated Negro. "
Henry Louis Gates
Values
Generation
Immigrant
" It's important to debunk the myths of Africa being this benighted continent civilized only when white people arrived. In fact, Africans had been creators of culture for thousands of years before. These were very intelligent, subtle and sophisticated people, with organized societies and great art. "
Henry Louis Gates
Great
People
Culture
" Fortunately, in President Obama, the child of an African and an American, we finally have a leader who is uniquely positioned to bridge the great reparations divide. "
Henry Louis Gates
Bridge
Child
Great
" I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and scared. And when you're desperate and scared you scapegoat people. It exacerbates latent tendencies toward - well, toward racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism. "
Henry Louis Gates
People
You
Well
" One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Suffering
People
" People are afraid, and when people are afraid, when their pie is shrinking, they look for somebody to hate. They look for somebody to blame. And a real leader speaks to anxiety and to fear and allays those fears, assuages anxiety. "
Henry Louis Gates
Leader
People
Look
" My father was the funniest man I ever met. He made Redd Foxx look like an undertaker. "
Henry Louis Gates
Man
Look
Made
" The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again. "
Henry Louis Gates
People
Live
Hope
" Very few, if any, first-generation black or white or Asian kids will pursue a Ph.D. They'll pursue the professions for economic security. Many will go to law school and/or business school. "
Henry Louis Gates
Black
Security
School
" The sad truth is that the civil rights movement cannot be reborn until we identify the causes of black suffering, some of them self-inflicted. Why can't black leaders organize rallies around responsible sexuality, birth within marriage, parents reading to their children and students staying in school and doing homework? "
Henry Louis Gates
Children
Truth Is
Truth
" The Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master and black ex-slave alike. "
Henry Louis Gates
Reason
Africa
Black
" America is the greatest nation ever founded. The ideals are the greatest ever espoused in human history, and we just need the country to live up to them. But what I worry about are the 1 million black men in the prison system. "
Henry Louis Gates
Need
History
Black
" My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black. "
Henry Louis Gates
Father
Am
I Am
" People don't realize what a brilliant politician Lincoln was. Looking back, we want to ascribe a level of providence to his every decision but he was a cunning and calculating politician; from the cultivation of his image as a hayseed from Illinois, to his ability to keep this country together under dire circumstances. "
Henry Louis Gates
Looking Back
People
Decision
" It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that. "
Henry Louis Gates
White
Black
Class
" We can revolutionize the attitude of inner city brown and black kids to learning. We need a civil rights movement within the African-American community. "
Henry Louis Gates
Community
City
Attitude
" No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the slave trade. The coast of Acapulco was a black city in the 1870s. And the Veracruz Coast on the gulf of Mexico and the Costa Chica, south of Acapulco are traditional black lands. "
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Trade
Black
City
" Ever since I watched 'Roots,' I've dreamed of tracing my African ancestry and helping other people do the same. "
Henry Louis Gates
Roots
Ancestry
Same