#thin

Let's face it - think of Africa, and the first images that come to mind are of war, poverty, famine and flies. How many of us really know anything at all about the truly great ancient African civilizations, which in their day, were just as splendid and glorious as any on the face of the earth? ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#africa #african #ancient #any #anything

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

#before #believe #brown #corrupted #difficult

You can make it if you try, push a little harder, think a little deeper. ↗

— Sly Stone

#harder #little #make #push #think

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

#affinity #african #african american #american #construct

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

— Henry Louis Gates

#criminal justice #criminal justice system #figure #i #i think

No one thinks of Mexico and Peru as black. But Mexico and Peru together got 700,000 Africans in the slave trade. The coast of Acapulco was a black city in the 1870s. And the Veracruz Coast on the gulf of Mexico and the Costa Chica, south of Acapulco are traditional black lands. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#city #coast #got #gulf #lands

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

#am #basically #best #capitalism #conservative

Dr. King's Nobel Prize had a more powerful transforming effect on him than I think he realized at the time. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#effect #had #him #i #i think

Everything my mother and father did was designed to put me where I am. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#designed #did #everything #father #i

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