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
I first learned that there were black people living in some place called other than the United States in the western hemisphere when I was a very little boy, and my father told me that when he was a boy about my age, he wanted to be an Episcopal priest, because he so admired his priest, a black man from someplace called Haiti.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects the importance of awareness and representation in understanding history and identity.
Henry Louis Gates shares a personal anecdote from his childhood that highlights how early exposure to diverse cultures and identities can shape one's understanding of the world. Through his father's aspirations and stories, Gates learned about the richness of black history beyond the United States, illustrating the significance of recognizing diverse influences in forming one's identity and aspirations.
Themes
EducationIdentityRepresentationCultureHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of cultural education, this quote can serve as an example of early insights into diversity.
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.
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.
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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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