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 can say I had a severe case of 'Roots' envy. I wanted to be like Alex Haley, and I wanted to be able to... do my family tree back to the slave ship and then reverse the Middle Passage, as I like to put it, and find the tribe or ethnic group that I was from in Africa.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a longing to connect with one's ancestral roots and heritage.
Henry Louis Gates reflects on his desire to trace his family lineage back to its origins in Africa, expressing a deep sense of connection to ancestry and the history it carries. This yearning for understanding one's roots highlights the importance of heritage in shaping identity and belonging.
In practice
In a speech about cultural identity, one might say, 'As Henry Louis Gates expressed, I believe understanding our roots is crucial for personal growth.'
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.
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.
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.
In fact, the class divide in the black community is now seen by some as a permanent aspect of our existence.
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.
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.
My father cared about the world he lived in, and so he admitted his confusion about his place in America because he didn't want me to make the same mistake in my life.
Even families with health insurance are quite vulnerable to a severe economic reversal if someone gets sick.
I was told bedtime stories by my father or my grandmother. Books, I mostly read on my own in bed.
When you leave them in the morning, they stick their nose in the door crack and stand there like a portrait until you turn the key eight hours later.
This is how it essentially is for Bunny Junior. He loves his dad. He thinks there is no dad better, cleverer, or more capable, and he stands there beside him with a sense of pride - he's my dad - and he also, of course, stands beside him because he has nowhere else to go.
When I was young, my brother David and I were farmed off to foster homes, and I spent time in orphanages. My father abandoned us. Here's the most important person in my life, and I never met him.
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