Best 654 quotes in «african american quotes» category

I'm so tired of the left trying to divide us by race. One of the things I said today in my speech, we're not Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans, rich Americans, poor Americans. We're all Americans.

I'm the whitest guy you will ever meet. The first time I saw an African-American, my dad had to tell me to stop staring.

In 2012, African-Americans were 13 percent of the electorate, and 93 percent of them voted for [Barack] Obama.

In 2008, the Democrats made a great effort among African-American voters, and they did increase their turnout considerably, and among Latino voters.

In 2012 President Obama didn't go anywhere near African-American communities. Why? Because unemployment was so high there, he didn't want to address it.

In a one-hour documentary, you can tell maybe ten stories. That's how the documentary is structured. I wrote to forty of the greatest historians of both African and African-American history, and hired them as consultants. I had them submit what they thought were the indispensable stories, the ones they felt this series absolutely had to include.

Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.

In particular in how [Barack Obama] has directed what you could describe as patronizing remarks to African-American communities.

In every crisis there is a message.

I never wanted to go on stage alone because if you mess up, who can you blame?

In order to be profoundly dishonest, a person must have one of two qualities: either he is unscrupulously ambitious, or he is unswervingly egocentric.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, we did create Color of Change, an organization which focused on African-Americans in particular, because we felt that there was a big gap there in terms of online advocacy which had left the black community particularly vulnerable.

Interestingly, a lot of the polling that I see is not along racial lines, but along generational lines. We are doing better and better among younger people, not so well among older people, whether they're African-American, whether they're white or whether they're Latino.

In terms of addressing some of the most impacted communities and historically excluded communities - often of color, often low income - there is this adage in specifically African American communities that on every corner in low income neighborhoods you'll find a liquor store.

In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

I rebel at the notion that I can't be part of other groups, that I can't construct identities through elective affinity, that race must be the most important thing about me. Is that what I want on my gravestone: Here lies an African American?

In the West or anywhere else, the treatment of people in an undignified way (structural and institutionalized racism against Latinos or African American citizens) as well as a dangerous dehumanization of some people (in Palestine, Iraq, Africa or Asia) are simply unacceptable.

I saw that the camera could be a weapon against poverty, against racism, against all sorts of social wrongs. I knew at that point I had to have a camera.

I respect myself and insist upon it from everybody. And because I do it, I then respect everybody, too.

I stay connected in my head. I'm spiritually and psychologically connected to African-Americans. They are my people, and that will never change.

I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman.

I serve on the Institute of the Black World's National Commission on African-American Reparations, and we have asked the President [Barack Obama] to, by executive order, establish a commission to study reparations. He can do this without Congressional approval. While I am not optimistic, I do hope that President Obama considers this in these waning months of his Presidency.

It appears that my worst fears have been realised: we have made progress in everything yet nothing has changed.

I suggest that Black feminist thought consists of specialised knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women. In other words, Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women's reality by those who live it.

I taught them everything they know, but not everything I know.

It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.

It doesn't matter how you travel it, it's the same road. It doesn't get any easier when you get bigger, it gets harder. And it will kill you if you let it.

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American.

I think anyone that comes to Nigeria has to offer value. What value are you bringing? There are Black Americans here. I think we've moved beyond that Africans vs. African Americans. They may have more issues with us than we do with them.

I think if you worked at the community level in Chicago and then a politician on the South Side of Chicago, and worked at the state level, then you're pretty familiar with all the variations of politics in the African American community and criticisms you may get. If you're not familiar with those or you don't have a thick enough skin to take it, then you probably wouldn't have gotten here.

I think that when Riccardo Tisci wanted to bring more attention to the lack of African American presence on the runway, he also wanted to bring attention to the lack of a sensibility of African and Asian art.

I think Muslims in particular are facing similar obstacles African Americans did, historically.

I think that I've developed very, very good relationships over the last little while with the African-American community. I think you can see that.

I think, though, as African-American women, we are always trained to value our community even at the expense of ourselves, and so we attempt to protect the African-American community.

I think there's no question that Michael Jackson was the foremost entertainer of his generation; perhaps of all time, arguably, taking the skills of a Sammy Davis, Jr., bringing together the street dance of African American urban culture, joining them to the politics of dance, of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly on that sphere alone.

I think there's a lot of things that occur within the African-American community, that we would prefer to stay within the African-American community - that we get a little nervous when you start having scenes or dialogue that we know is going to be viewed and heard on a national or global scale.

I think the important thing to understand first and foremost about Michael Jackson is that he was the international emblem of the African American blues spiritual impulse that goes back through slavery - Jim Crow, Jane Crow, up to the present moment, through a Louis Armstrong, through a Ma Rainey, through a Bessie Smith, all the way to John Coltrane, Aretha Franklin and Nina Simone.

I think you had the GOP down there in North Carolina reaching out to African-American voters and this guy coming on television and using the N-word and saying what Don Yelton said.

It is extremely rough to follow through with my goals, but I felt a responsibility to show the world what the African Americans are facing through this rough patch.

It is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have an opportunity and not be prepared.

It is easy to be independent when you've got money. But to be independent when you haven't got a thing, that's the Lord's test.

It is a blessing to die for a cause, because you can so easily die for nothing.

It is not possible to erase racism just because African-Americans have reached a level of financial success and crossover appeal.

It is my hope that as we commemorate Black History Month in the future, we will continue to celebrate the many achievements and rich culture of African-Americans.

It is so painful to suggest that we go back to think about these days where an African-American could not be a citizen of the United States.

It's easy to do anything in victory. It's in defeat that a man reveals himself.

It may be changing, but still it's the one place, that total control of an institution, that African Americans have. So sometimes, you know, you'll hear the statement of African Americans saying, "I have to work with whites.

It requires enormous energy for us to cut the African American uninsured rate by a third. A lot of scars.

I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

It's important for women to understand that it's bad enough that we don't make dollar-for-dollar what men do, but when you distill that down to women of color, our Latinas and our African American women, it's even less than that 78 cents.