Ishmael Reed Quotes - Page 3

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• I use non-fiction work written by Whites in my research. It's indispensable. That wasn't the problem. I said that "The Wire" was a cliché! It's like my writing a series about Jewish life and casting all of the characters as inside traders.

  Ishmael Reed

  Writing, Character, Wire

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• The plays raise issues that are ignored in other forums.

  Ishmael Reed

  Play, Issues, Ignored

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• In Crash, you've got a pathological cop who at the end justifies police brutality. He tells the naïve, young cop that you're going to end up the same as him. He's the most sympathetic character in the movie. So, the naïve cop ends up murdering this Black kid and tries to cover up the evidence. It sort of justifies police brutality and the planting of evidence which is what happened in the O.J. Simpson case.

  Ishmael Reed

  Character, Kids, Police

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• I don't know why people always compare me [ with Amiri Baraka] I was never part of the Black Arts Repertory Theater or the Black Arts Movement; people who claim that I was are wrong. I was downtown. I was living in Chelsea when they were operating in Harlem.

  Ishmael Reed

  Art, People, Black

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• As a writer, you explore all kinds of different emotions.

  Ishmael Reed

  Different, Emotion, Kind

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.

  Ishmael Reed

  Character, Men, Black History

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• I was roommates with 2 of the guys who were influential in forming the Black Arts philosophy. I called them "goons," and [Amiri] Baraka took offense at that. But if you read his autobiography, the night we went up there for a fundraiser, he talks about how he wished that some violence would happen to us. How do you like Baraka as a gracious host?

  Ishmael Reed

  Art, Philosophy, Night

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  10 Copy quote

• Howard University holds something called "Heart's Day," an all day ceremony in which a writer is honored. I was the recipient of this honor. It's a wonderful ceremony that Eleanor Traylor chair of English at Howard University organizes for writers. Writers from around the country came to pay tribute to my work. It was very flattering.

  Ishmael Reed

  Country, Heart, Honor

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• The cultural wars of the sixties are over. I've reconciled with those who were my critics and opponents years ago. I was at odds with some those who were Black nationalists. Yet when feminists attempted to end my career and leave me as literary road kill, it was the Black nationalists who came to my rescue.

  Ishmael Reed

  War, Odds, Years

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Do you think that Gwendolyn Brooks would give an award to someone who hated Black women, the lie that was circulated throughout New York and reached all the way down to Martinique where I was a guest Professor? The lie was circulated by people who don't read my books.

  Ishmael Reed

  New York, Lying, Book

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I was on a panel with light skinned Blacks and a famous gay science fiction writer, who were complaining about how Blacks are against gays and light skinned Blacks and how intolerant Blacks are of different groups. My position was that Blacks were among the most humanistic, tolerant groups in the country and that across the street from my house in Oakland was one inhabited by White gays.

  Ishmael Reed

  Country, Gay, Light

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I was challenged to a fistfight by Margo Jefferson, the Pulitzer Prize winner, New York Times writer, who is part of a feminist clique at the Times, which believes that Black men are the principal threat to the women of the world.

  Ishmael Reed

  New York, Believe, Men

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• Joel Chandler Harris, who created a multi billion dollar industry, everything from his books, to Disney's "Song of the South" based upon the Uncle Remus stories. He got his start by transcribing the stories of slave Informants. I'm sure that none them got a dime.

  Ishmael Reed

  Song, Uncles, Book

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Richard Price, who has made a fortune writing fake ghetto books, says he takes a cab into the ghetto, transcribes Black speech for a brief time and returns home. His fake ghetto books have bought him a townhouse in Gramercy Park and home on Staten Island.

  Ishmael Reed

  Book, Home, Writing

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I asked Joe Weixlmann why he would print a death threat like that in light of the fact that there are all of these armed ideological nuts wandering around loose. He said that for him, to "ice" someone means to reprimand them.

  Ishmael Reed

  Mean, Light, Ice

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• I get most my information about what's happening in the United States from reports and studies, which are often in conflict with what you read on the editorial pages, or handouts from right wing institutions like the American Enterprise Institute.

  Ishmael Reed

  Wings, United States, Pages

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Unfortunately, in the world today, we have dogmatic people entering into politics. I don't think the two mix.

  Ishmael Reed

  Thinking, Two, People

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• Americans are fickle. And what constitutes the enemy is always changing. Believe it or not, at one time Blacks were the favored model minority over Asian Americans.

  Ishmael Reed

  Believe, Enemy, Asian

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I'm sure that a previous generation of Jews who published radical newspapers and journals would be critical of [David] Simon's projects. These were left wingers who suffered casualties in some of bloodiest strikes in American history.

  Ishmael Reed

  Would Be, Generations, American History

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• My generation of writers has been prone to premature illness and death, especially the women. When Black male writers meet it's like a session of the American Diabetic Association.

  Ishmael Reed

  Black, Males, Generations

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• David Simon goes to the Jewish Weekly and said he's made all this money, but he can't enjoy it because of criticism by people like Ishmael Reed.

  Ishmael Reed

  People, Criticism, Reeds

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I guess when it comes to this privileged White racist feminist movement they respect someone who treats them rough: John Wayne. Frank Sinatra. Phillip Roth.

  Ishmael Reed

  White, Feminist, Racist

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• There would be no Rock and Roll without Ike Turner, James Brown, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, etc. Fake ghetto books and fake ghetto music. Elvis Presley, whom they idol, is merely a karaoke makeover of James Brown and Chuck Berry.

  Ishmael Reed

  Book, Ghetto, Rocks

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

• Another California study counted 30,000 substance abusers who are pregnant are White woman. So, The Wire paints the picture of drug addiction, drug dealing, and drug abuse as being a specifically a Black issue.

  Ishmael Reed

  California, White, Issues

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

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• I'm not against White writers writing about Blacks as long as they are as objective as say James McPherson writing about an Irish American janitor in his brilliant short story "Gold Coast."

  Ishmael Reed

  Writing, White, Long

  Source: www.counterpunch.org

  4 Copy quote

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