Justice should be blind especially color-blind and able to fairly deal with the very real need for honest law enforcement.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the limited portrayal of black Americans in mainstream history, urging recognition of their broader contributions.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's quote emphasizes that traditional history narratives often reduce the experiences and contributions of black Americans to a narrow focus on slavery and civil rights. By stating that 'there's so much more to the story', he calls for a deeper exploration and acknowledgment of the rich and diverse cultural, intellectual, and societal contributions made by black Americans throughout history.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during a Black History Month discussion to highlight the importance of a more inclusive historical narrative.
More from Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
All quotes βI'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.
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.
I think someone should explain to the child that it's OK to make mistakes. That's how we learn. When we compete, we make mistakes.
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The story of the African-American people is the story of the settlement and growth of America itself, a universal tale that all people should experience.
The men who founded and governed Massachusetts and Connecticut took themselves so seriously that they kept track of everything they did for the benefit of posterity and hoarded their papers so carefully that the whole history of the United States, recounted mainly by their descendants, has often appeared to be the history of New England writ large.
Germany has spent the decades since World War II in national penance for Nazi crimes. America spent the decades after the Civil War transforming Confederate crimes into virtues. It is illegal to fly the Nazi flag in Germany. The Confederate flag is enmeshed in the state flag of Mississippi.
The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.
One day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
No city in the world, not even Athens or Rome, ever played as great a role in the life of a nation for so long a time, as Jerusalem has done in the life of the Jewish people.