Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Faith in God helped black Americans endure slavery and Jim Crow.
Irish Americans are no more Irish than Black Americans are Africans.
The relationship of black Americans to Obama is sociologically riveting.
The history of Black Americans in South Carolina is riddled with trials and tribulations.
Progress for black Americans depends on good schools because education is the last great equalizer.
In 1975 I was among a group of blacks who formed the Black Americans in Support of Israel Committee.
News flash to black Americans: Barack Obama has never loved you, and by now, it should be clear to you!
All black Americans have slave names. They have white names; names that the slave master has given to them.
I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.
Big and oppressive government has long been the enemy of freedom, something black Americans know all too well.
A powerful way to sidestep America's reluctance to become postracial would be for more black Americans to become postnational.
In a typical history book, black Americans are mentioned in the context of slavery or civil rights. There's so much more to the story.
Despite a rich history of black Americans involved in the Catholic Church, invisibility is a big problem for black Catholics in America.
And if you want to make many of our black leaders angry, just tell them that racism is not the number problem that black Americans face.
As America prepared for war in 1941, discrimination largely shut black Americans out of job opportunities in the growing defense industry.
I think race has been a burden for black Americans. Being Muslim has also been a challenge because so many people do not understand Islam.
I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.
Black Americans have organized all across this country because we have an unequal justice system, not because anyone demands special privileges.
Muhammad Ali is my hero. Yes, he was the best boxer in the world, but he also put himself on the line. He talked when black Americans had to be quiet.
But I know that the vote of 9 out of 10 black Americans for the Democratic Party or for leftist kinds of policies just is not reflective of their opinions.
Black Americans, no more than white Americans, they do not want more government programs which perpetuate dependency. They don't want to be a colony in a nation.
Literature has been a treacherous site for black Americans because literary production has been so tied with the project of proving our humanity through the act of writing.
As soon as you say that there is a community called, let's say, black Americans, you've immediately created a boundary line - who's in that group, who's outside that group.
Well, like most black Americans, I grew up thinking I was supposed to be a Democrat. It wasn't even something you questioned or thought twice about. Black equaled Democrat.
For black Americans, we know that gun control... sprouts from racist soil - be it after the or during the infamous Dred Scott case where black man's humanity was not recognized.
I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation.
The great drama at the core of American race relations is always the same: Can black Americans ever be truly equal - are they capable of achieving it and are others capable of accepting it?
The injustices endured by black Americans at the hands of their own government have no parallel in our history, not only during the period of slavery but also in the Jim Crow era that followed.
My kids are the reason I continue to strive for something better. They know - as kids who are Muslim, Somali, black Americans - that they've always been part of a struggle and that change isn't easy.
The closest Indian analogy to the position of black Americans is that of the Dalits - formerly called 'Untouchables,' the outcastes who for millennia suffered humiliating discrimination and oppression.
We have far more options for black Americans to tell stories outside of slavery, but whenever it comes to slavery, it's an uncomfortable subject. Why? Because it's the most unresolved subject in American history.
It's impossible for most black Americans to construct full family trees. Official census records, used by so many genealogy enthusiasts to piece together their families' pasts, don't include our non-European ancestors.
White Americans believe we've made more progress since the end of slavery in 1865 than do black Americans for whom '12 Years a Slave' documents a collective memory, passed down in the genes and by the lore of generations.
In fact, the religious right consists of an alliance of several groups that, without experiencing anything like the oppression visited on black Americans, have consistently occupied lower rungs in the American social hierarchy.
When President Kennedy was elected, many black Americans, like so many Americans, were captivated by his youth and energy and promise and were especially hopeful that he might move the country in a new direction on civil rights.
Too many of our fellow Americans have to struggle each day against the obstacles imposed by racism, history and original sin. These obstacles are real, and they affect the way police departments have acted toward Black Americans.
So white guilt is not a guilt of conscience; it's not something that you get up in the morning and say, my God, I feel guilty about what happened to black Americans. Rather it is the fact that in relation to black Americans you lack moral authority.
I happen to think that conservatism, when properly applied to the 21st century, could actually help everybody. And the message of Trump's campaign was obviously not super-appealing to Latino Americans, black Americans and so forth. That really bothered me.
Law enforcement's biased view of the Irish lives on in the nickname we still use for the vehicles we use to transport groups of prisoners. It is, after all, the 'paddy wagon.' The Irish had tough times, but little compares to the experience on our soil of black Americans.
As black Americans continue to be insulted and dismissed by protected white liberals, the Black Talented Tenth will continue to benefit from political donations, speaking engagements, national media presence, accolades as the official black leaders, and perpetual gigs on MSNBC and CNN.
How many of the original songs survive intact from the slave cabins? Probably not many in their original form. Time has transformed them like light in a prism. What we hope to present is a version of those spirituals, and they speak not just to black Americans, but to people worldwide.
To operate with the aspiration of color-blindness in a country whose central operating mechanism for centuries has been race belies the logic of race-neutral public policy. Public policy must account for the historic and intentional pillaging of resources experienced by black Americans.
I have always drawn strength from my late mother's life. When Eunice Johnson set up the first major fashion show for African-American audiences more than 50 years ago, she did so at a time when black Americans, especially black women, were still fighting for a seat at the table - any table.
I think all in all, one thing a lot of plays seem to be saying is that we need to, as black Americans, to make a connection with our past in order to determine the kind of future we're going to have. In other words, we simply need to know who we are in relation to our historical presence in America.
Black Lives Matter is proving itself to seek only one end - and that is discord, alienation among Americans, rise in hate, and destruction of community bonds. The relative increase in justice afforded black Americans is of little concern, save as a convenient veneer for their anti-democratic mission.
If his presidency is to represent the full power of the idea that black Americans are just like everyone else - fully human and fully capable of intellect, courage and patriotism - then Barack Obama has to be subject to the same rough and tumble of political criticism experienced by his predecessors.
It is time to celebrate the New Black Americans - those who have sealed the Deal, who aren't beholden to liberal indulgence any more than they are to the disdain of the hard Right. It is time to praise blacks who are merely undeniable in their individuality and exemplary in their levels of achievement.
I am a black American, I say, and thus announce my atavistic connection to all others who live as black Americans, to all who ever lived as black Americans. Religion, caste, class, gender and race can all be atavisms, and they are inherently anti-democratic because they exclude all outside the atavism.
America has granted every wish of black Americans. It has made government the head of the black family; it has integrated the schools and neighborhoods; it has given blacks welfare and affirmative action; it has even apologized through Bill Clinton. There is simply nothing else that America can or should do.
We are in a diversity age. I talk about the lack of diversity for black Americans, but what about the Asian Americans? You don't see them very often. They have a show called 'Fresh off the Boat.' No one is talking about that show. I saw it, and I found that show completely offensive, but I'm not Asian American.