Henry Louis Gates Quotes About Today

Quotes about: Today

• Our society is driven today by so much ethnic discord. We have Black Lives Matter, which I praise and celebrate. We have the demagogues stereotyping Muslims and resurrecting racist stereotypes they used to visit on us. The larger goal is to show that we are all the same, we all come from Africa, and we all have the same larger family tree. It's about the fundamental unity of the human community.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Goal, Community, Tree

  "Black Ancestry Matters on 'Finding Your Roots'". Interview with Alexandra Phanor-Faury, www.ebony.com. January 26, 2016.

• The first slave came to Florida in 1526. The first one we know by name, Esteban, which means Stephen, came a couple of years later. So, we start with the stories of Juan Garrido and Esteban to show that African-American people have been here a century longer than anyone thought, and that the diversity we see in the African-American community today has existed since the beginning.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Couple, Mean, Years

  Source: pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• We can see that the complexity we witness inside the African-American community today has always been there. Black people were just as noble and just as ignoble as anybody else.

  Henry Louis Gates

  People, Community, African American

  Source: pittsburghurbanmedia.com

• I find that people today tend to use them interchangeably. I use African-American, because I teach African Studies as well as African-American Studies, so it's easy, neat and convenient. But sometimes, when you're in a barber shop, somebody'll say, "Did you see what that Negro did?" A lot of people slip in and out of different terms effortlessly, and I don't think the thought police should be on patrol.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Thinking, People, African American

  Source: pittsburghurbanmedia.com

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