Popular quotes about African! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 41
It was easy to persecute me without people feeling ashamed. It was easy to vilify me and project me as a woman who was not following the tradition of a 'good African woman' and as a highly educated elitist who was trying to show innocent African women ways of doing things that were not acceptable to African men.
Wangari MaathaiWell, Smoke n' Mirrors has very much a world music flavor and it doesn't park itself in one country. It borrows heavily from the Brazilian angle, which is dear to my heart, and I recorded several albums with that flavor. Probably even more so than the Brazilian flavor, there's an African, South African and West African influence and on a couple of other tracks there's some Latin flavor and there's some Indian tables on one track, all centered around my jazz guitar and acoustic guitars, and very much a Lee Ritenour sound.
Lee RitenourI have my mother who is an Irish-Italian, and my father who is African, so I have the taste buds of an Italian and the spice of an African.
Alicia KeysNot only are there African accomplices inside the imperialist system, but every African has a responsibility to understand the system and work for its overthrow.
Walter RodneyAfrican slavery is the corner-stone of the industrial, social, and political fabric of the South; and whatever wars against it, wars against her very existence. Strike down the institution of African slavery and you reduce the South to depopulation and barbarism.
Laurence M. KeittA genocide in Africa has not received the same attention that genocide in Europe or genocide in Turkey or genocide in other part of the world. There is still this kind of basic discrimination against the African people and the African problems.
Boutros Boutros-GhaliWill African-Americans break away from the pack thinking and reject immorality-- because that's the reason the family's breaking apart--alcohol, drugs, infidelity. You have to reject that, and it doesn't seem--and I'm broadly speaking here, but a lot of African-Americans won't reject it
Bill O'ReillySo for everybody who allows themselves to be separated from me because I said "African" instead of "Nubian" or "Black" or "Kemet" or "original" or "Israelite," don't be so foolish. I say "African" because the continent of Africa is the land from which we all originate. It is the word that we are most familiar with right now.
Sister SouljahUnity will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will, therefore, increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.
Julius NyerereI don't regret the fervor, because I do believe, in the African American community but also for other communities, and I know from talking to people, for communities around the world, the election of an African American to the most powerful office on Earth meant things had changed, and not just in superficial ways. That in some irreversible way the world was different.
Barack ObamaAll people of African descent, whether they live in North or South America, the Caribbean, or in any part of the world are Africans and belong to the African nation.
Kwame NkrumahWhen you graduate is when you start to find yourself looking at the information in the audition breakdown and it says tall black African - or African-American built such and such. And you start seeing these character descriptions and seeing that, oh, you're only going in for the ones that are described as your look.
Mahershala AliI don't think every African-American or Latino have the same body type, but, yes, that's been one of the excuses ... saying that African-Americans are too muscular or just aren't lean enough. Usually they say, "Oh, they have flat feet so they just don't have the flexibility that it takes to create the line in a point shoe."
Misty CopelandDespite all of the civil rights gains of the past several decades, when it comes to economic opportunity, African Americans and Latinos still experience far more unemployment than do whites and Asians, average wages are lower, and household wealth is lower. A smaller percentage of African Americans and Latinos attend, and complete, college, than is the case with whites and Asians, and a higher percentage end up in prison. All of these are indicators of massive disparities in opportunity, and these disparities are mirrored in poverty data.
Sasha AbramskyCongolese rumba was so huge in Africa that everybody was inspired by it. But my African roots brought me this music. In every African family, parties in Brussels, we used to listen to this kind of music. And salsa music as well.
StromaeAfrican American children are significantly more likely to be obese than are white children. Nearly half of African American children will develop diabetes at some point in their lives. People, that's half of our children. ...We can build our kids the best schools on earth, but if they don't have the basic nutrition they need to concentrate, they're still going to have a challenge learning.
Michelle ObamaWith respect to Barack Obama, let's face it; Barack Obama is an iconic figure in the African-American community. We respect that. We understand that. African-Americans are going to vote for the first black president, especially when he happens to share the liberal politics on economic issues that many in that community hold.
Artur DavisI am South African and I am so aware, even as a white, privileged South African, that even within our community of privilege the idea of talking about sex or sexual preference or sexual identity or anything like that was just, nobody ever did that and nobody ever felt comfortable doing that.
Charlize TheronThe South African government, unlike a lot of African governments, isnโt poor.
Charlayne Hunter-GaultObama was elected in a flourish of promise that many in the African-American community believed would help not only to symbolize African-American progress since the Civil War and Civil Rights Acts but that his presidency would result in doors opening in the halls of power as had never been seen before by black America.
Douglas WilderI had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it 'The Men' and call it 'The Women' and show different faces of these two people.
Faith RinggoldWe don't intend to always keep this necessarily African oriented. Originally I had hoped to have African American Indian of this area, and the Appalachian of this area, but at the same time, just as we have the Haitian room, we will always have room for another exhibit.
Katherine DunhamAll the struggles that were fought for here in the United States for African Americans, you now enjoy the privileges of. You now come here and can enjoy privileges that were fought for by African Americans over several generations.
Danai GuriraI've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.
Jordan PeeleCampaigns and elections are not a game. They're not a game. They're about trying to change America. We're the wealthiest country in the history of the world. We should not be having Flint, Michigan, or African-American communities all over this country where schools are failing. Those are the issue we got to pay attention to and not at this as come kind of silly game. And that is the critique that bothers me. That's what bothers me about media coverage.
Bernie SandersThe 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 WarwickWhen I walk in the door sometimes, I'm already an anomaly. Because I'm working in a genre that African-American's don't typically engage in.
Kevin GreviouxI've been typecast. People don't want to take a risk or a chance. Quite a few times they've come up to me and say "We want you to do that Russian accent." And I'll be like, "How about if I do an Irish accent or a South African accent," and they don't trust that you can properly pull them off.
Scott AdkinsYoga class is intimate even just from the standpoint of taking off your socks. Exposing your bare feet can be a big deal. You may be an African American next to a Caucasian or a Latino. But once practice begins and we drop in, separation dissolves.
James FoxEveryone says we have our first African American president. Has there ever been a Jewish president? An Italian president? They don't say a damn thing about that. You think we're still fighting the Civil War or something. If you want to mention it in passing, OK. But don't dwell on it.
Monte Irvin"Softly, softly, catchee monkey," is the West African rendering of a very valuable precept. An awful lot of men fail through lack of patient persistence.
Robert Baden-PowellA very hurting thing for Black Americans - to feel that we can't love our enemies. People forget what a great tradition we have as African-Americans in the practice of forgiveness and compassion. And if we neglect that tradition, we suffer.
Bell HooksI wrote some bad poetry that I published in North African journals, but even as I withdrew into this reading, I also led the life of a kind of young hooligan.
Jacques Derrida[God brought African slaves to America] so that their descendants would know freedom.
Ezola B. FosterI happen to think that Hillary Clinton is a beacon of hope for younger girls, as was Barack Obama in other inspirational areas. We've now had an African American president, possibly a woman president, it's pretty cool. As far as she is concerned, whether man or woman, she is capable and experienced to be president.
Alex MenesesThere's very good evidence that the average cat in Europe has a larger environmental footprint in its lifetime than the average African.
Jason W ClayWhen I got my success I became decadent for a while. This was 2003 to 2008. I fell for tiramisu really hard. I've become more moderate since, because African-Americans are prone to diabetes.
Jill ScottBlacks have no rights - in fact they were three - fifths human according to the constitution to give slave owners more voting rights. So that's African Americans.
Noam ChomskyAn important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.
William LabovSome 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 SykesAn old African leader says about leadership, he says that leadership should never be shared; it should always remain in the hands of the dispossessed people. We will lead the revolution.
H. Rap BrownI believe that there is a God, and coming from an African tradition, I believe also that there are gods.
Ishmael BeahObama a โlight-skinnedโ African-American โwith no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.
Harry ReidI come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me.
Annie IlonzehEvery African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.
Lee Daniels