QuoteProject
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
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote emphasizes the importance of integrating African American culture into the broader educational framework of American society.

Henry Louis Gates expresses a desire for the educational system in America to reflect a more diverse cultural landscape. By advocating for 10 percent representation of black culture within the common educational narrative, Gates highlights the need for inclusion and recognition of African American contributions, ensuring that students receive a well-rounded understanding of their nation's heritage.

Themes

EducationCultureDiversityInclusionBlack History

In practice

Example use cases

During a speech on cultural diversity in education, this quote could be used to emphasize the need for inclusivity.

More from Henry Louis Gates

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
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.
Henry Louis GatesRead
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.
Henry Louis GatesRead
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.
Henry Louis GatesRead
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

Similar quotes

Education is the development of power and ideal.
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
Far from creating independent thinkers, schools have always, throughout history, played an institutional role in a system of control and coercion. And once you are well educated you have already been socialized in ways that support the power structure, which, in turn, rewards you immensely.
Noam ChomskyRead
I've spoken in every state in the union, meeting and hugging the people who later bought my books. I spoke to anybody who wanted to hear me, including 1,000 nuns who could pay me only with homemade bread.
Leo BuscagliaRead
The books which help you most are those which make you think the most. The hardest way of learning is by easy reading; every man that tries it finds it so. But a great book that comes from a great thinker, β€” it is a ship of thought, deep freighted with truth, with beauty too.
Theodore ParkerRead
If your writing doesn`t keep you up at night, it won`t keep anyone else up either".
James M. CainRead
Our children should learn the general framework of their government and then they should know where they come in contact with the government, where it touches their daily lives and where their influence is exerted on the government. It must not be a distant thing, someone else's business, but they must see how every cog in the wheel of a democracy is important and bears its share of responsibility for the smooth running of the entire machine.
Eleanor RooseveltRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.