Henry Louis Gates Quotes & Sayings (Page 10)

“It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.”

“My goal is to get everybody in America to do their family tree.”

“One must learn how to be black in America.”

“Remember, I have a Ph.D. in English literature.”

“Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.”

“I'm a tech geek.”

“I'm a tech geek. Whenever I read about something new, I think to myself, How can I take this and make it black?”

“When Europeans came upon real ruined cities they refused to believe that they had been built by Africans. Here the past has been distorted and denied.”

“So, Mexico, Brazil, they wanted their national culture to be 'blackish' - really brown, a beautiful brown blend. And finally, I discovered that in each of these societies the people at the bottom are the darkest skinned with the most African features.”

“The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.”