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" When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied. "
Henry Louis Gates
Ruined
Real
Past
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" So when you do your family tree and Margaret Cho does hers, and... Wanda Sykes and John Legend... we're adding to the database that scholars can then draw from to generalize about the complexity of the American experience. And that's the contribution that family trees make to broader scholarship. "
Henry Louis Gates
Experience
Trees
Tree
" I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it black? "
Henry Louis Gates
New
Myself
Black
" 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
" In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence. "
Henry Louis Gates
Community
Class
Now
" Wherever you go in the history of America, there have been Black people making contributions, but their contributions have been obscured, lost, buried. "
Henry Louis Gates
People
History
Lost
" 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
" But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of the negative ones is that it creates enormous identity problems for people who have one black ancestor and all white ancestors for example. "
Henry Louis Gates
You
Society
Identity
" 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
" Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that. "
Henry Louis Gates
People
Black
Patriotism
" I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it's difficult for 'poor people' - poor white people, brown people - to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are. "
Henry Louis Gates
Great
Racism
People
" 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 give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ice hockey...' - and then I used to say 'golf,' but Tiger took over golf! - 'and Picasso and still be as black as the ace of spades.' "
Henry Louis Gates
Tiger
You
Speech
" 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
" I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American? "
Henry Louis Gates
Me
Race
Rebel
" Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. "
Henry Louis Gates
Will
Problems
Poor
" Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am. "
Henry Louis Gates
I Am
Father
Everything
" It's very lonely being a prominent black intellectual at an institution where you're the only prominent black intellectual. That was the model that was followed in the late 60s when black studies started. You'd get one here and one there and one here, like Johnny Appleseed. "
Henry Louis Gates
Intellectual
Black
Late
" A more humane form of capitalism is about the best I think we can get. Which might sound very reformist or conservative, but that's basically where I am. "
Henry Louis Gates
Sound
Think
I Am
" Because Lincoln is so closely identified with what it is to be American, everyone wants to claim him, to rewrite his story to satisfy their own particular needs. "
Henry Louis Gates
Story
American
Everyone
" My father, if anything, first and last, was a man of words. He loved stories; he didn't live for stories, exactly, but I think he lived through stories. I think, like many writers, he loved stories about things he had experienced as much as, if not more than, he loved the experiences themselves. "
Henry Louis Gates
Live
Think
Words
" I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten. "
Henry Louis Gates
Prison
Think
Want
" 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
" In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black. In Brazil, it's almost as if one drop of white ancestry makes you white. "
Henry Louis Gates
Drop
Black
America
" Most black leaders, whether left, right or center, from Frederick Douglas and Martin Delaney on in the middle of the 19th century have not even wondered about the merits of the capitalist system. "
Henry Louis Gates
System
Black
Right
" It's fascinating how life works. "
Henry Louis Gates
Life
Works
How
" 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
" There are just so many stories that are buried on family trees. "
Henry Louis Gates
Family
Trees
Stories
" My family and our neighbors and friends thought of Africa and its Africans as extensions of the stereotyped characters that we saw in movies and on television in films such as 'Tarzan' and in programs such as 'Ramar of the Jungle' and 'Sheena, Queen of the Jungle.' "
Henry Louis Gates
Queen
Thought
Movies
" 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