Michael Emerson Quotes - Page 2

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• There are roles that are terrifying because they're large or you may feel that they're out of your line, but I'm never terrified once the actual work begins. Once you begin rehearsal, then it's small building blocks. It's solving little problems one at a time.

  Michael Emerson

  Block, Roles, Lines

  "Actor Michael Emerson". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. May 16, 2012.

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• As you may know, previously as Attorney General and now as Governor, I have supported legislation to close the gun show loophole in North Carolina.

  Michael Emerson

  Gun, May, North Carolina

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• I've played villains on stage - you know, the Iagos and so on - but I think of myself as a funny person. I mostly did comedies before I did TV work.

  Michael Emerson

  Thinking, Tvs, Comedy

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• And different traditions stress different - so then there's that. I talked to an African American who says before she goes into an interracial church, she sits in her car and she listens to gospel music to get her fill, and she goes into an interracial church where they don't do gospel music, and she's ready to accept the other sorts of ways of worshipping. So there's that.

  Michael Emerson

  Stress, Car, African American

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I've been blessed by doing classic plays on Broadway, which was one of my great dreams forever.

  Michael Emerson

  Dream, Blessed, Play

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• It worries me a little bit the reach and power of TV. More people saw me in The Practice than will ever see me in all the stage plays I ever do. Which is sort of humbling. Or troubling. Or both.

  Michael Emerson

  Practice, Play, People

  "Biography/Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I ask the clergy why don't I see myself represented in leadership? And I'm told, and this happens quite a bit, "We don't think about race when we hire. We just hire the best person for the job."

  Michael Emerson

  Jobs, Thinking, Race

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• And sometimes the clergy are blindsided by that. Other times they realize that ahead of time and say they're not going to use those terms. So it gets complicated for sure.

  Michael Emerson

  Use, Complicated, Sometimes

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• We're going to see more, and we are seeing more, and I'll tell you exactly why. Not because white and black are more likely to get together. Only a third of the seven percent of congregations that are interracial are black and white.

  Michael Emerson

  Black And White, Together, Why Not

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Then of course there are bigger things that matter, like who do I see up there in the congregation? Do I see myself up there? Well, I don't.

  Michael Emerson

  Matter, Bigger, Wells

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• So they actually put it into their mission statement, and they start changing things as a result. They may change how worship works. They may actively recruit folks and try and get them to come and help them to feel comfortable and get them involved in leadership, and there's a variety of ways.

  Michael Emerson

  Trying, May, Way

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.

  Michael Emerson

  Country, Race, Facts

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Once in a while you get people that maybe because of economic reasons, or have a social network, they get attracted. But it's a very tiny percent so that when we look at, you know, who are pastors and who are the head clergy of these congregations, they're overwhelmingly white, just a few African Americans, and those folks are usually called to what were formerly white congregations, or they started interracial church from the get-go.

  Michael Emerson

  White, People, African American

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I meet almost no one that goes to an African-American church or thinks, "I'm going to do that." Now there are whites in African-American churches. They're interracially married. They're highly committed. Maybe there's a professor or two, or a student.

  Michael Emerson

  Thinking, Two, African American

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think whites are used to being in power, so when whites think we ought to have integrated churches they think, "People ought to come to our church. What can we do to get them to come?"

  Michael Emerson

  Thinking, People, Church

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• So we didn't get the denominations and the separate congregations really till about into Civil War time. What's happened then, of course, is now that we've had well over 100 years of this history to establish separate cultures, different ways of worshipping, and different ways of understanding theology so that when people try to come together makes it very difficult. And then, of course, social networks, you know, how do we find a place to worship?

  Michael Emerson

  War, Years, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• So it may be a language that separates you - again, social networks. But second-generation Asian and Hispanics, second, and third and fourth and so on, they are much more likely to be in integrated churches than are blacks or whites.

  Michael Emerson

  Church, Asian, Generations

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• But what we found in the study is that churches are ten times less diverse than the neighborhoods they sit in. So there's something more going on than just reflecting the neighborhood, yeah.

  Michael Emerson

  Church, Study, Yeah

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• If we go into white congregations, non-whites will sometimes say it felt like worship never started. It was sort of dead and didn't feel that warmly received. But so - and there are different realities either way, and it makes it difficult for all groups to try and cross boundaries.

  Michael Emerson

  Reality, White, Trying

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Preaching styles and people being slain in the spirit and things like that. Now it doesn't happen in all black churches, and it happens sometimes in white churches, right? But on average they're quite a bit different.

  Michael Emerson

  Average, White, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• Call-and-response style, yes, exactly. So whenever different groups get together then there has to be this long period of negotiation. How will we worship? What's acceptable? What's not? If I want to say "Amen" can I?

  Michael Emerson

  Long, Style, Together

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• What sort of difficulties would happen when people of different cultures try to come together to worship? Tiny little things such as let's tell jokes with each other.

  Michael Emerson

  People, Trying, Together

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think it's pretty dynamic. There's a lot of energy there and life, and you'll have women dressed in their traditional African dress when they come, and you have people from all over the place, and some people have headphones on because they're listening in Spanish.

  Michael Emerson

  Thinking, People, Listening

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think it's going to open up a wider place for a discussion about we ought to come together in our churches, in our neighborhoods, in our work places, in our clubs and our networks. I think it'll be more acceptable to talk about it. We'll see what happens. It'll take some time. But I think it will.

  Michael Emerson

  Thinking, Together, Church

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I think with President Obama there's going to be a discussion, because he himself is multiracial, because we have for the first time a non-white president. There's going to be talk about what does this mean? What is it? Are we in a new era?

  Michael Emerson

  Mean, Thinking, White

  Source: www.pbs.org

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