You notice patterns. White guests often are mortified - that word again - when they learn their ancestors owned slaves. But I've never had a black guest who was upset to learn about white ancestry that probably involved forced sexual relations.
Henry Louis Gates
Related When I was saying, 'White people go to hell,' I never had trouble finding a publisher. But w... AMIRI BARAKA Whenever I've had success, I never learn from it. Success usually breeds a degree of hubris. Whe... MOBY I said there was a society of men among us, bred up from their youth in the art of proving by words ... JONATHAN SWIFT 'The Cosby Show' was a show about black people that was fundamentally and unequivocally frie... REBECCA TRAISTER As an attorney, I could be rather flamboyant in court. I did not act as though I were a black man in... NELSON MANDELA You learn their honesty, you learn their competitiveness. You learn a lot about a person. It's n... DONALD TRUMP When we don't have information, we go to the simplest outlook, to black and white. But then we h... PATRICIA SUN My mum is black, my dad is white, and when I was a teenager, people would say, 'So what are you?... FLEUR EAST Black progressives suffered major disillusionment with white progressives when our experiences of wo... BELL HOOKS When I'm around black or white people, I'm always in the middle. Especially when I am around... KARYN PARSONS 'Widow' is a word I never thought would describe me, but I had to learn to deal with that. EVE ARDEN I wanted to learn how to paint rather than just doing black-and-white work. BILL SIENKIEWICZ I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones a... EDWARD BROOKE But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some ve... HENRY LOUIS GATES When Howard Beach occurred -- and it was white on black -- everyone was upset. This is similar. Some... NORMAN SIEGEL It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but... MURIEL SPARK There are not many males, black or white, who wish to get involved with a woman who's committed ... ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON It's good to play something that's black and white, and a guy that sees right and wrong. I... DAVID LYONS When I was younger, I was very princessy. I always wanted to be blond-haired and blue-eyed. This was... GRACE LIN I have friends who are black whose families opened their arms to them when they came out; I have fri... ADEPERO ODUYE Back when we was in school in Mississippi, we had Little Black Sambo. That's what you learned: A... B. B. KING You have a plantation where you have 10 white people and you have about 50 or 60 black people. The a... ALDIS HODGE And I can relate to that, because I went to an all white school, so I knew what that was like. And i... RACHEL TRUE That was the problem with the 'celibate' word because they don't consider for a moment t... MORRISSEY Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition ... CARMEN EJOGO Never mind what you've heard. Halle Berry was not the first black woman to win an Academy Award ... JEFFREY KLUGER He was a pretty black-and-white guy when I hired him. I kept telling him things were not always blac... LARRY STEVENS We who follow the Honorable Elijah Muhammad feel that when you try and pass integration laws here in... MALCOLM X We want to live in the black and white, but we don't. The world is gray. And, I'm always fas... TONY GOLDWYN White people just don't want their slaves to be free. That's the whole thing. MUHAMMAD ALI Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is... CORETTA SCOTT KING Black-and-white always looks modern, whatever that word means. KARL LAGERFELD I'm a Southerner - I never take satisfaction in touching a nerve. I guess if I'm forced to f... KATHRYN STOCKETT I'm the descendant of enslaved black people in this country. You could've been born in 1820 ... TA-NEHISI COATES Originally, I thought English was more my home. But Spanish is so much more romantic. I've had t... LA INDIA I've had to learn when not to tweet. Like, you learn how to keep your mouth shut? Learn to keep ... DAN STEVENS When I was eight years old, I wrote a paragraph-long short story about a goat on my mother's hun... TEA OBREHT I've done maybe twelve of Shakespeare's plays. I was with the Royal Shakespeare Company for ... CHARLES DANCE I have discovered with advancing years that few things are entirely black or white, but more often d... JEFFREY ARCHER It's never black and white on 'Game of Thrones.' If you think it's black and white, ... MAISIE WILLIAMS For Bobby and I to sing R&B and sound black was probably the stupidest thing we could do. White ... BILL MEDLEY I've found that when everyone rallies behind a cause, and when they learn their effort can contr... AARON KOBLIN The United States is not a nation of black and white people. Any fool can see that white people are ... ALBERT MURRAY The readership of Victorian novels, when they were published, was much less diverse. People were pro... ELEANOR CATTON I never heard people speak about segregation as some great cross that they were bearing. They just w... ED SMITH When I'm in England, I know I'm a visitor, but being a white man in England with ancestry th... NICOLAS CAGE These are issues that are not either black or white, but they are issues that are compassionate, RICHARD LUGAR All white people in the United States have benefited from a white supremacy. But does that mean that... RANDALL KENNEDY When you reduce life to black and white, you never see rainbows. Do you? LILY CHATTERJEE There's one thing you can't learn in a segregated school as a minority. You can't learn to operate i... GARY ORFIELD We've all heard that we have to learn from our mistakes, but I think it's more important to ... NORMAN VINCENT PEALE And I also figured out that way I can do a film in black and white because I've never been able to d... ALEX COX It was a very acute racial moment. The trial about a black man killing a white woman exacerbated the... SALIM MUWAKKIL I joke to people in the press that I realize I'm not black, I'm actually white. But I've... GLENN HUGHES There are not many males, black or white, who wish to get involved with a woman who's committed to h... ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON I've always been a tomboy. I've always liked to wear red, black, and white, and mostly pants... JANET JACKSON Slavery was something people in the country thought they needed. America was more an agricultural co... BARBARA JEAN WASHINGTON Choices of right or wrong are not presented to you in black and white. If they were, I'm sure mo... BETHANY MCLEAN I really wanted to be born a woman. It all started there. A South American woman. And I'm upset ... FISHER STEVENS We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real ... PAUL MOONEY It was probably my fault that I had never asked them before if they wanted to be more involved, but ... ANNE WALLACE Although black and white Americans live, work, and learn together now, there is still injustice in A... KATHLEEN SEBELIUS I don't know much about my family history except that my father had straight black hair and his ... TREVOR MCDONALD The whole series is black-and-white, so when I went to shoot one of the women I only had black-and-w... HELMUT NEWTON I never felt that I was supposed to be white. Or black, either. My parents just wanted to let me be ... COLIN KAEPERNICK The troops aren't red and blue. They're not black and white. They're not male and female... TAMRON HALL You know, people who almost - yeah, there's a slight reluctance there - but there's also an ... MATT ROBINSON I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things are n... BRIAN MOLKO I believe very strongly that when it comes to desire, when it comes to attraction, that things ar... BRIAN MOLKO I guess, in a way, I grew up mixed race: half white, half black. That question's always been on ... REGGIE WATTS I was told by the general manager that a white player had received a higher raise than me. Because w... CURT FLOOD Jewish, black, Filipino, whatever the specificity is, it's specificity that makes a good story. ... RACHEL BLOOM There's times when you'll think that you mightn't, / There's times when you know that you might; / B... RUDYARD KIPLING Not saying I was a bad kid, but I had a lot to learn. You've just got to not be impulsive. STEFON DIGGS I make films about black women and it doesn't mean that you can't see them as a black man, d... AVA DUVERNAY I've been the best player on every team that I played on, so if I can't be the poster child ... GARY SHEFFIELD ...enslaved black males were socialized by white folks to believe that they should endeabor to becom... BELL HOOKS I'd like to see more crossover between white and black music. That's something I've been... DARYL HALL I was making big paintings with mythological themes. When I started painting black figures, the whit... KARA WALKER The problem, of course, was that [he] saw the world in black and white. And he got to decide what wa... KHALED HOSSEINI I've never cared for guns. In fact, when I did 'Scent of a Woman' I had to learn how to ... AL PACINO I don't trust white critics' judgment about most things that deal with black life, particularly when... TERRY MCMILLAN When you photograph people in color, you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in... TED GRANT Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw ... RICHARD DAWKINS Which is probably the reason why I work exclusively in black and white... to highlight that contrast... LEONARD NIMOY When you talk to an author - to any artist, really - you learn something about how they do what they... REBECCA MAKKAI If you see a black family, it's looting, but if it's a white family they are looking for foo... KANYE WEST My go-to shoes for everyday would probably have to be either my white Converse that I've had sin... KATHERINE SCHWARZENEGGER The more we learn, the more we will be confronted with decisions that we've never had to make be... RICCARDO SABATINI Sister, there are people who went to sleep all over the world last night, poor and rich and white an... MAYA ANGELOU She is still forming her conclusions but, above all, is convinced that their actions are borne of in... EMMANUELLE DE MAUPASSANT Black and white creates a strange dreamscape that color never can. JACK ANTONOFF There isn't any one material that's mine. It all depends on the context. For example, I did ... ANNABELLE SELLDORF There's no question that O.J. Simpson had been a substitute white man in America. He had gained ... MICHAEL ERIC DYSON Yes beyonce, thank you very very much!!! Growing up wasn’t easy for me, even as a boy, ... JOSEPH EJIRO I have found people on both sides of the aisle, white and black, that'll give you the shirt off ... AL GREEN With terrorist groups like al Qaeda, you can't learn what you want to learn about their capabili... BOB GRAHAM I think anybody who is racist is an idiot whether they are black or white. CHARLES BARKLEY I've learned that you learn best by modeling. If you want people to learn, do it! LEO BUSCAGLIA Women can really be who they are. I'm about to say the F word, feminist. Often that word has suc... LAURA KIGHTLINGER
More Henry Louis Gates
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HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to discover that there is a nic... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The Liberals have many tails, and chase them all HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN If you want peace, work for justice. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Idealist: One who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it will als... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Bachelors know more about women than married men do. If they didn't, they'd be married too. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Sunday School: A prison in which children do penance for the evil conscience of their parents HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Going to school does not make a person educated, any more than going to a garage makes a person a ca... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Misogynist: A man who hates women as much as women hate one another HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN You can't kiss an oil well. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I believe that all government is evil, in that all government must necessarily make war on liberty, ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Only a government that is rich and safe can afford to be a democracy, for democracy is the most expe... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Remorse is regret that one waited so long to do it HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is not materialism that is the chief curse of the world, as pastors teach, but idealism. Men get ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Injustice is relatively easy to bear; what stings is justice HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Opera in English is, in the main, about as sensible as baseball in Italian. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Belief in our mortality, the sense that we are eventually going to crack up and be extinguished like... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man always remembers his first love with special tenderness, but after that he begins to bunch the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Socialism: nothing more than the theory that the slave is always more virtuous than his master HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The theory seems to be that as long as a man is a failure he is one of God's children, but that as s... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN All government, of course, is against liberty. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is now quite lawful for a Catholic woman to avoid pregnancy by a resort to mathematics, though sh... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A home is not a mere transient shelter: its essence lies in the personalities of the people who live... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The capacity of human beings to bore one another seems to be vastly greater than that of any other a... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Love is an emotion that is based on an opinion of women that is impossible for those who have had an... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Men have a much better time of it than women; for one thing they marry later; for another thing they... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There are some politicians who, if their constituents were cannibals, would promise them missionarie... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Wealth - any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one's wife's... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The American people, taken one with another, constitute the most timorous, sniveling, poltroonish, i... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN War will never cease until babies begin to come into the world with larger cerebrums and smaller adr... 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HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Say what you want about the Ten Commandments, you must always come back to the pleasant fact that th... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN He marries best who puts it off until it is too late HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN After all, all he did was string together a lot of old, well-known quotations. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The common argument that crime is caused by poverty is a kind of slander on the poor HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Theology-An effort to explain the unknowable by putting it into terms of the not worth knowing HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Church: A place in which gentlemen who have never been to Heaven brag about it to people who will n... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The way to hold a husband is to keep him a little jealous; the way to lose him is to keep him a litt... 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In order to get anywhere near high ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man always blames the woman who fools him. In the same way he blames the door he walks into in the... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Any man who, having a child or children he can't support, proceeds to have another should be sterili... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Husbands never become good; they merely become proficient HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is a sin to believe evil of others, but it is seldom a mistake. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Free speech is too dangerous to a democracy to be permitted HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The argument that capital punishment degrades the state is moonshine, for if that were true then it ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is Hell, of course, that makes priests powerful, not Heaven, for after thousands of years of so-c... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The only really happy folk are married women and single men. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN God is a Republican, and Santa Claus is a Democrat HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The great secret of happiness in love is to be glad that the other fellow married her HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Nothing is so abject and pathetic as a politician who has lost his job, save only a retired stud-hor... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The trouble with Communism is the Communists, just as the trouble with Christianity is the Christian... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Evangelical Christianity, as everyone knows, is founded upon hate, as the Christianity of Christ was... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A national political campaign is better than the best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism and ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A fool who, after plain warning, persists in dosing himself with dangerous drugs should be free to d... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better p... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN There is only one justification for having sinned, and that is to be glad of it HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN At the moment of the contemporary metaphysician's loftiest flight, when he is most gratefully warmed... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for idea... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN To wage a war for a purely moral reason is as absurd as to ravish a woman for a purely moral reason HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It doesn't take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound c... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every man sees in his relatives, and especially in his cousins, a series of grotesque caricatures of... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Suicide is belated acquiescence in the opinion of one's wife's relatives HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The objection of the scandalmonger is not that she tells of racy doings, but that she pretends to be... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Lying is not only excusable; it is not only innocent; it is, above all, necessary and unavoidable. W... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN I believe that no discovery of fact, however trivial, can be wholly useless to the race, and that no... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The one permanent emotion of the inferior man is fear - fear of the unknown, the complex, the inexpl... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN He uses his sources as a drunkard uses lampposts; not to light him upon his way, but to dissimulate ... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN A man loses his sense of direction after four drinks; a woman loses hers after four kisses HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; as for me, I rejoice t... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Bachelors know more about women than married men; if they didn't they'd be married too. HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN One seldom discovers a true believer that is worth knowing HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN It is only the savage, whether of the African bush or of the American gospel tent, who pretends to k... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN Every man is thoroughly happy twice in his life: just after he has met his first love, and just afte... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN The fact that a human brain of high amperage, otherwise highly efficient, may have a hole in it is s... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN You come into the world with nothing, and the purpose of your life is to make something out of nothi... HENRY LOUIS MENCKEN