#ill

Truth will always be truth, regardless of lack of understanding, disbelief or ignorance. ↗

— W. Clement Stone

#disbelief #ignorance #lack #regardless #truth

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

#ascribe #back #brilliant #calculating #circumstances

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

#america #black #country #ever #founded

Cuba is like going to a whole other planet. It's so different but it's so similar to the United States, to Miami. It's like a doppelgaenger. It's the mirror image. And I have no doubt, that once Cuba becomes democratic, that it will be the favorite tourist destination for Americans. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#cuba #democratic #destination #different #doubt

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

#black #each #freshmen #give #golf

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

#against #america #anti-semitic #based #best

Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#blacks #forth #low #politicians #poor

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

#below #black #children #classes #day

I think it's very important that we instill in our kids that it has nothing to do with their name or their situation that they're growing up in; it has to do with who they are as an individual. ↗

— Melinda Gates

#growing up #i #i think #important #individual

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

#admire #again #america #avenue #barack