#rican

First we have to recognize that the cause of poverty is both structural and behavioral. And the first thing about the behavior part is that we need a moral revolution within the African American community. Look - no white racist makes you get pregnant when you are a black teenager. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#african #african american #american #behavior #behavioral

I want to get into the educational DNA of American culture. I want 10 percent of the common culture, more or less, to be black. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#american culture #black #common #culture #dna

It turns out one of my ancestors fought in the Continental Army, so I was inducted into the Sons of the American Revolution. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#american revolution #ancestors #army #continental #fought

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

So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#american history #been #color #contributions #history

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

#beautiful #blend #bottom #brazil #brown

The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#agents #been #between #business #commercial

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

#african-american community #attitude #black #brown #city

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

#american #as far as #back #black #born

Actually, today I had to defend the Bush Administration in France again. They refuse to accept, because of their political ideology, that he has actually done more than any American President for Africa. But it's empirically so. ↗

— Bob Geldof

#actually #administration #africa #again #american