Justice should be blind especially color-blind and able to fairly deal with the very real need for honest law enforcement.
When I was 17, I worked in a mentoring program in Harlem designed to improve the community. That's when I first gained an appreciation of the Harlem Renaissance, a time when African-Americans rose to prominence in American culture. For the first time, they were taken seriously as artists, musicians, writers, athletes, and as political thinkers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar reflects on the importance of cultural appreciation and the impact of the Harlem Renaissance on African-American identity.
In this quote, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar shares his experience of working in a mentoring program during his teenage years, highlighting how this experience sparked his appreciation for the Harlem Renaissance—a pivotal era in which African-Americans made significant contributions to American culture across various fields. He acknowledges the importance of recognizing and valuing the achievements of African-American artists, thinkers, and leaders, emphasizing the influence of this cultural movement on society and the need for continued appreciation of diversity in the arts and beyond.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech at a cultural event to inspire young artists.
More from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
All quotes →I've had enough success for two lifetimes, My success is talent put together with hard work and luck.
Music rhythms are mathematical patterns. When you hear a song and your body starts moving with it, your body is doing math. The kids in their parents' garage practicing to be a band may not realize it, but they're also practicing math.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
I'm not comfortable being preachy, but more people need to start spending as much time in the library as they do on the basketball court.
Five guys on the court working together can achieve more than five talented individuals who come and go as individuals.
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Television is a non graded curriculum and excludes no viewer for any reason, at any time. In other words, in doing away wtih the idea of sequenece and continuity in education, television undermines the idea that sequence and continuity have anything to do with thought itself.
Of all the intellectual faculties, judgment is the last to mature. A child under the age of fifteen should confine its attention either to subjects like mathematics, in which errors of judgment are impossible, or to subjects in which they are not very dangerous, like languages, natural science, history, etc.
You can't call yourself a university and exclude whole ethnic groups.
Every lecture should state one main point and repeat it over and over, like a theme with variations. An audience is like a herd of cows, moving slowly in the direction they are being driven towards. If we make one point, we have a good chance that the audience will take the right direction; if we make several points, then the cows will scatter all over the field. The audience will lose interest and everyone will go back to the thoughts they interrupted in order to come to our lecture.
Let us have "sweet girl graduates" by all means. They will be none the less sweet for a little wisdom; and the "golden hair" will not curl less gracefully outside the head by reason of there being brains within.