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 GatesRead
You have a diasporic black world, and the only way to put it back together again is symbolic. It's like Humpty Dumpty. Whoever could edit the 'Encyclopedia Africana' would provide symbolic order to the fragments created over the past 500 years. That is a major contribution.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote speaks to the importance of creating symbolic unity among fragmented cultural identities.
Henry Louis Gates reflects on the challenges faced by the diasporic black community, highlighting the need for a symbolic reconciliation of diverse cultural identities that have been fragmented over centuries. By referencing 'Humpty Dumpty,' he emphasizes that just as one could not physically reassemble the broken figure, the task of uniting and giving meaning to the African diaspora requires thoughtful interpretation and representation, which would significantly contribute to understanding and appreciating shared heritage.
Themes
DiasporaSymbolicBlack IdentityAfricaFragmentationUnity
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about cultural heritage, one might say, 'As Gates pointed out, we must strive to create a symbolic order from our fragmented identities.'
More from Henry Louis Gates
All quotes →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.
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In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.
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In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.
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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 GatesRead
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 GatesRead
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