Popular quotes about African! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
Lawrence Hill, a cultural and spiritual descendant of West African griots, has used his vast storytelling talents to create an epic story that spans three continents. The Book of Negroes recites the pain, misery and liberation of one African woman, Aminata Diallo, who was stolen from her homeland and sold into American slavery. Through Aminata, Hill narrates the terrifying story of slavery and puts at the centre a female experience of the African Diaspora. I wept upon reading this story. The Book of Negroes is courageous, breathtaking, simply brilliant.
Afua CooperWe do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.
Thabo MbekiMy solutions are to include Africa in the global economy, and not African charity, AIDS research, but African infrastructure development. And I think that Africa can import and needs everything the whole world can manufacture. And they have got enough money to pay for it. It's just that the money is in the ground.
Andrew YoungI am an American. Black. Conservative. I don't use African-American, because I'm American, I'm black and I'm conservative. I don't like people trying to label me. African- American is socially acceptable for some people, but I am not some people.
Herman CainI'm one of the few Black writers, or African American writers, who managed to work my way through the system so that it has allowed me to speak in a kind of free way. But most African American writers don't have that. They don't have that opportunity, they don't have that.
James McBrideI don't do stuff to be a star. I do it because I feel it's important for kids, African American kids, to see an African American face that plays baseball.
Matt KempIt is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity. Divided we are weak; united, Africa could become one of the greatest forces for good in the world.
Kwame NkrumahLiterature doesn't have a country. Shakespeare is an African writer. His Falstaff, for example, is very African in his appetite for life, his largeness of spirit. The characters of Turgenev are ghetto dwellers. Dickens characters are Nigerians.
Ben OkriMy roots are African. The birds I remember, the fruits I ate, the trees I climbed, they're African.
Teresa HeinzSure, there's a chunk of African-Americans out there who associate the Republican Party with racism, frankly particularly in the Deep South. It's an unfair perception, but it exists. Over a period time, that perception will die away if Republicans are focusing on issues that happen to impact African-Americans.
Artur DavisThere were people who voted for Obama simply because he was the first African-American. We had a lot of people that would not have voted for Obama but who did because they really hoped that the nation, making the statement electing an African-American president, would prove once and for all that this is not a racist nation. I believe that there were all kinds of people that voted for Obama with that hope. That was the reason. Everything else was irrelevant to them.
Rush LimbaughMost of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.
Whoopi GoldbergIn the United States, the average is two children per family, while in Africa it is five children per family. On the surface, the statistic seems to indicate that Africans are having way too many kids and are taxing the Earth's resources, while American kids are born into families who are able to take care of them. However, the average American child consumes roughly the same resources as fifteen African children. So when an American family says they only have two children, they are actually consuming the resources of an African family of thirty children!
Sharon GannonWithin the model minority rhetoric, Asian Americans are represented as โgoodโ minorities and African Americans are represented as โbadโ minorities. Here, the achievements of Asian Americans are used to discipline African Americans. As model minorities, Asian Americans achieved the status of โhonorary Whitesโ. Again it is important to point out that the honorary whiteness of Asian Americans was granted at the expense of Blacks. It is also significant that as โhonorary Whites,โ Asian Americans do not have the actual privileges associated with โrealโ whiteness.
Jennifer LeeScience fiction is the only genre that enables African writers to envision a future from our African perspective.
Nnedi OkoraforAfrican-American women who develop breast cancer are more likely to die from the disease than White women of the same age. Survival rates are worse among African-Americans for colon, prostate and ovarian cancers as well.
Frank C. GarlandI have always, or for the most part, identified myself as a biracial person. Much to the chagrin of a lot of African-American people that I meet, because it's almost like there's a betrayal, an intrinsic betrayal: "Don't do that, brotha, we need you. We need you here, in this fold."
Keegan-Michael KeyThe Civil Rights for Musicians Act is about economic justice for African American artists. It's about what's right. And it's about time.
Dionne WarwickI understand how difficult it can be for an African-American in todayโs society. In fact, I can relate to black people very well indeed. My ancestors once owned slaves, and it is in my lineage to work closely with the black community. However, just because they were freed over a century ago doesnโt mean they can now be freeloaders. They need to be told to work hard, and the incentives just arenโt there for them anymore. When Iโm president I plan to work closely with the black community to bring a sense of pride and work ethic back into view for them.
Mitt RomneyI don't want to exaggerate; having as many African American men as we've had in the criminal-justice system, and the amount of time it takes for the damage done by that to wash through our society and our communities, the disadvantages born out of kids being undiagnosed with mental-health problems early, or not getting the kind of exposure to reading and math when they're 4 or 5 or 6 years old, that carries a cost.
Barack ObamaI ended Affirmative Action by executive order and replaced it with a leadership model that created more opportunities for African-American and Hispanic students.
Jeb BushAmerican audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.
Rokia TraoreWhen the average American consumes 43 times as much as the average African, we've got to think that consumption is an issue. It's not just about population.
Jason W ClayI have 90 percent or 95 percent support in the African American community and it's not sort of "Well, he's black, so it's okay. We're not going to say anything even though we're seething." And I hang out with a lot of middle-aged black women, and they're not casual in their support of me. There's a lot of love forthcoming. Partly because they understand the constraints of this society. They know that this is hard.
Barack ObamaI'm less interested in how we label ourselves. I'm more interested in how we treat each other. And if we're treating each other right, then I can be African-American, I can be multi-racial, I can be you name it, what matters is, am I showing people respect, am I caring for one, for other people.
Barack ObamaWhen we rise in the morning... at the table we drink coffee which is provided to us by a South American, or tea by a Chinese, or cocoa by a West African; before we leave for our jobs we are already beholden to more than half the world.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Today, we have come a distance. We have made a lot of progress. That cannot be denied. You cannot dispute the fact that our country is so different from 50 years ago. But we still have problems. There are too many people that have been left out and left behind, and they are African American, they are White, Latino, Asian American, and Native American.
John LewisAfrican agriculture today is among, or is, the most under-capitalized in the world. Only seven percent of arable land in Africa is irrigated, compared to 40 percent in Asia.
Eleni Zaude Gabre-MadhinI think one can live in American society with a certain cultural heritage, whether it's an African heritage or other, European,what have you, and still absorb a great deal of this culture. There is always cultural assimilation.
Martin Luther King, Jr.The fact that there aren't an abundance of African-American males that are getting lead roles [and] that are getting roles that have prominence on the big screen. [It's] the same thing from behind the camera; maybe even worse. Coming up, when you're black and you want to direct somebody says, "Oh, you're Spike Lee" or "You're John Singleton."
Michael B. JordanI was wondering why I was put in prison for working in an African language when I had not been put in prison for working in English. So really, in prison I started thinking more seriously about the relation between language and power.
Ngugi wa Thiong'oFor starters, Portland isn't a great city to live in if you're a young, African American male with a lot of money.
Greg OdenWhen we were covering the 2008 campaign I told my young African American colleagues that despite the historical significance of victory, Barack Obama was going to break their hearts. They didn't want to hear that, and they refused to believe it. Eighteen months later they started dropping by one by one to say, sadly: "He broke our hearts." A couple of them even wept.
Bill MoyersI am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by that.
Robert Griffin IIISome black people want to get in touch with their African roots. But then you got some black people that just don't give a damn. You tell them, 'Hey, I just got back from the motherland.' "They're like, 'Where'd you go - Detroit? Did you see The Temptations?'
Wanda SykesI grew up upper-class. Private school, my dad had a Jaguar. We're African-American and we work together as a family, so people assume we're like the Jacksons. But I didn't have parents using me to get out of a bad situation.
Beyonce KnowlesRead a textbook. It will tell you. These are the things for instance on the African continent that will contribute to immune deficiency, various tropical diseases because of poor infrastructure, general levels of poverty donโt get treated. Syphilis untreated or not properly treated, which as it happens is a big problem as I hear, gets treated, the symptoms disappear but in factโฆ it โฆ that impacts on the immune system. Youโve got to deal with these things.
Thabo MbekiI think one of the political problems we have in this country is the perspective that all soccer moms think alike, all African-Americans think alike.
Anne NorthupIf the day comes when the two-state solution collapses, and we face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights (also for the Palestinians in the territories), then, as soon as that happens, the State of Israel is finished.
Ehud OlmertObama a โlight-skinnedโ African-American โwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.
Harry ReidThe problem is not unique; the challenge is not unique to South Africa. Other African countries have faced it. But in our case, we have got to solve the problem. You have got an institutional traditional leadership, which functions in a particular way, in for instance, your communal areas.
Thabo MbekiIn my recent travels into African countries and others, I was impressed by the importance of having a working unity among all peoples, black as well as white.
Malcolm XWe...we could be friends.' We COULD be rare specimens of an exotic breed of dancing African elephants, but we're not. At least, I'M not.
Neil Gaiman