Henry Louis Gates Quotes - Page 4

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• So, the kind of precious memories about being black for my generation won't exist for my kids' and grandkids' generations unless we preserve them through fiction, through film, through comic books, and every other form of media we can possibly utilize to perpetuate the story of the great African-American people.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Memories, Book, Kids

  "Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. - The “The African Americans” Interview". Interview with Kam Williams, aalbc.com. October 15, 2013.

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• It's fascinating how life works.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Fascinating

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• People who own property feel a sense of ownership in their future and their society. They study, save, work, strive and vote. And people trapped in a culture of tenancy do not.

  Henry Louis Gates

  People, Culture, Study

  Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2012). “The Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Reader”, p.546, Basic Books

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• For black America needs a politics whose first mission isn't the reinforcement of the idea of black America; and a discourse of race that isn't centrally concerned with preserving the idea of race and racial unanimity. We need something we don't yet have: a way of speaking about black poverty that doesn't falsify the reality of black advancement; a way of speaking about black advancement that doesn't distort the enduring realities of black poverty.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Reality, Race, Ideas

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• I want to be a figure for prison reform. I think that the criminal justice system is rotten.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, Justice, Criminals

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• 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

  White, America, Black

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• 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, Brutality, Stories

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• 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

  Latin, Color, America

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• Lincoln had a tremendous capacity for personal growth - more than any other American President.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Growth, President, Capacity

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• If America has a civic religion, the First Amendment is its central article of faith.

  Henry Louis Gates

  America, Democracy, Firsts

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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

  Real, Believe, Past

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• I want to be black, to know black, to luxuriate in whatever I might be calling blackness at any particular time, but to do so in order to come out on the other side, to experience a humanity that is neither colorless nor reducible to color.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Order, Color, Humanity

  Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (2011). “Colored People”, p.15, Vintage

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• You can find virtually everybody black back as far as the 1870 census. Why 1870? That's when the ex-slaves first have surnames. But if you find your great-great-grandfather in 1870 and it says he's 50, that means he was born in 1820 and you're back to 1820 already. For an American that's pretty damned good, you know?

  Henry Louis Gates

  Mean, Black, Grandfather

  "35 Million Ways to Be Black". Interview with Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• All of the guests on 'Faces of America' were deeply moved by what we revealed about their ancestry. We were able to trace the ancestry of Native American writer Louise Erdrich back to 438 A.D. We found that Queen Noor is descended from royalty, and that's before she married King Hussein of Jordan.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Kings, Queens, Native American

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• 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

  Golf, Hockey, Years

  "35 Million Ways to Be Black". Interview with Adam Hochschild, www.motherjones.com. March 14, 2007.

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• I would like to do a series about sequencing the human genome, and also analyze more human diversity among other ethnic groups - a 'Faces of America 2.'

  Henry Louis Gates

  America, Diversity, Groups

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• 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

  Needs, Stories, Want

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• 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

  Children, Bridges, Leader

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• 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

  Thinking, Class, White

  "The biggest brother". Interview with Sean O'Hagan, www.theguardian.com. July 20, 2003.

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• You can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Roots, Slave Ships, Envy

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• 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

  Opportunity, Class, Dysfunction

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• The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Grandma, Dna, Long

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• 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

  America, People, Black

  "Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr". "The Tavis Smiley show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. March 19, 2008.

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• My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Father, Son, African American

  "Q&A: Henry Louis Gates Jr. on the Mysteries of His Genome". Interview with John Lauerman, www.bloomberg.com. February 17, 2012.

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• An impressively researched and documented collection of the finest thought produced by writers throughout the African Diaspora. A magnificent achievement.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Achievement, Diaspora, Finest

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