Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
When two enemies are talking, they're not fighting.
When something bothers me, I try to learn about it.
Music teaches us how to work together, how to harmonize.
Music is indeed the universal language and unites people.
Find someone who disagrees and invite them to your table.
If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.
Always keep the lines of communication open with your adversaries.
The most powerful tools you can have are information and knowledge.
Chuck Berry had a very profound impact on me. The man was a genius.
I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.
I respect someone's right to air their views whether they are wrong or right.
Am I going to vote for Trump? Absolutely not. I do not believe in his platform.
There has always been a great deal of racism in the U.S. before and after Obama.
It's very important that we learn how to communicate... and learn to respect each other.
At the end, ignorance is the source of biases. If we cure that, there's nothing to fear and hate.
Music is my profession but learning more about racism on all sides of the tracks was my obsession.
Music absolutely played a massive role in bridging many gaps in the racial divides I would encounter.
I've been playing music professionally, full time since 1980 when I graduated college at the age of 22.
I don't have any brothers and sisters, so I always relied on my parents to guide me or answer questions.
Every racist that I know - and I know a lot of racists - every racist that I know voted for Donald Trump.
If you have an adversary, you don't have to respect what they're saying, but respect their right to say it.
In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.
When I experienced racism here in my own country, I was not prepared for it. I had never heard the word racism.
A stupid person is someone who has the facts, who has the proper information, and still makes the wrong decision.
In most of my encounters with Klan members, we would discuss reasons for why they were members in the first place.
I'm always thinking 'how can I blend something?' whether it's musical instruments, voices, or the people around me.
I was no stranger to racism. Having grown up a black person in the '60s and '70s, I knew that prejudice was common.
We've simply been putting Band-Aids on the wounds of racism. We haven't drilled down to the bone to get to its source.
I don't consider myself to be a racist, but to me there's not much difference between a black racist or a white racist.
You cannot hate the hate out of a person. You cannot beat the hate out of a person. But you can love it out of a person.
Invite your enemies to sit down and join you. One small thing you say might give them food for though, and you will learn.
We spend too much time talking about each other, at each other, past each other, and not enough time talking with each other.
He spoke nine languages. You know some people can just pick up an instrument and play. My father was like that with languages.
Racism is a cancer. You cannot ignore it and it'll go away. If you ignore cancer, it simply metastasizes and consumes the whole body.
I am not so naive as to think everyone will change. There are certainly those who will go to their graves as hateful, violent racists.
If you have an adversary, an opponent with an opposing point of view, give that person a platform, regardless of how extreme it may be.
There's no more denying it, or saying we live in a post-racist society. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see all these hate crimes.
The most important thing I learned is that when you are actively learning about someone else you are passively teaching them about yourself.
Our society can only become one of two things, it can be become what we let it become or it can become what we make it, and I choose the latter.
I decided to go around the country and sit down with Klan leaders and Klan members to find out: How can you hate me when you don't even know me?
I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question: 'How can you hate me when you don't even know me.'
People learn racism through dialogue. Somebody tells them about it. So if you can learn it through dialogue, you can also unlearn it through dialogue.
Ignorance breeds fear. If you don't keep that fear in check, that fear will breed hatred. If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.
There have been some incidents in which I was threatened and a couple of instances where I had to physically fight. Fortunately, I won in both instances.
Everybody likes music. And rock 'n' roll - that was the music that brought white youth and black youth together for the first time in American music history.
I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.
Some black people who have not heard me interviewed or read my book jump to conclusions and prejudge me... I've been called Uncle Tom. I've been called an Oreo.
They've changed the name from white supremacy to white separatists, to white nationalists, to alt-right. It's the same thing. A rose by any other name is still a rose.
What we do too much of is, we talk about each other, we talk at each other, or we talk past each other. I have found that talking with each other is much more effective.
You can legislate behavior but you cannot legislate belief. Patience is what it takes. But patience doesn't mean sitting around on your butt waiting for something to happen.