A Quote by Don Cheadle
If people in this country think of Africa as a place with kids and flies swarming around their heads, then they won't understand that these people are you and you are them.
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People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them. This is what people have come to expect. Its not viewed as a serious continent. Its a place of strange, bizarre and illogical things, where people dont do what common sense demands.
You definitely want your kids to understand their heritage, but I don't want my kids to just focus on being black. They are people. I don't want them to judge other people or to be judged. I want them to be good people, so good people will treat them accordingly. I preach that to my kids and everything else falls into place.
I'm naive. I will admit that I'm naive. There's a part of me, honestly, to the depths of my soul, that doesn't understand why people hate this country. Intellectually, I understand it. I understand the politics of grievance, and I understand the way people have been taught, but compared to every other place human beings have lived before this country and since it was founded, it makes no common sense to hate this place, and yet people do.
I think when you've travelled around a lot in Africa, you understand something that many people here don't recognize: the extraordinary power that is Africa at village level - at community level.
There is no abstract Evil; you have to understand that! Its roots are here, all around us, in this herd that goes on chewing and having a good time only an hour after a murder! That's what you have to fight for. For people. Evil is a hydra with many heads, and the more of them you cut off, the more it grows! Hydras have to be starved to death, do you understand that? Kill a hundred Dark Ones, and a thousand more will take their place.
I mean, let's face it, it's 2000 and people are beginning to wake up on some level. I think that, as I was saying earlier, there's just no denying the impact that showing people the truth can have. It allows people to understand themselves, and when you understand yourself you can understand the people around you. And then you can begin to let go of all the bullshit that leads into things like world wars, racism, stereotypes, and bigotry.
People go to Africa and confirm what they already have in their heads and so they fail to see what is there in front of them.
There can hardly be a stranger commodity in the world than books. Printed by people who don't understand them; sold by people who don't understand them; bound, criticized and read by people who don't understand them; and now even written by people who don't understand them.
I'm extremely positive about investment in Africa. Africa has a wonderful climate, wonderful people, and amazing possibilities. Africa has been called dark and hopeless, but today it is neither of these. Africa is awakening. It's a huge market of almost a billion people with huge resources and a young population. It's the best place to invest.
We [Americans] are a nation of immigrants. We all understand what this country has become because talent from all around the world wants to come here, people who are willing to take risks, people who want to build on their dreams and make sure their kids have an - even bigger dreams than they have.
When you have kids it's nice to have a place where they can always return to and some place where they will grow up in, but I never had that. I'm not attached to things and places. I like that we [the family] keep moving. It's a nomadic life, and I think that's a great life. I'm excited when we take our kids to a new country and they don't just immediately look for the comforts of home. They blend into that country. Send them to any place in the world and they won't be scared. They'll just feel like they can make friends there.
If you want to be a great leader, you have to put the interest of the country above your own. I would like to think that true leadership is not just telling people what they want to hear but helping them understand things, so you can explain to them what you think is best, and then they can judge you on that.
Do you think that the people of South Africa, or anywhere on the continent of Africa, or India, or Pakistan are longing to be kicked around all over again?
In the kids' home I was in, there was very little change of staff. People stuck around, and they stuck around because they were being paid enough to stay there and raise their families. If you're not supporting the people looking after the kids, you're not supporting the kids, and you might as well chuck them all in the bin.
Our goal is to have a country that's not divided by race. And my impression, as I travel around the country, is that that's the kind of country that most people want, as well, and that we all have prejudice, we all have certain suspicions or stereotypes about people who are different from us, whether it's religious or racial or ethnic, but what I think I found in the American people, I think there's a core decency there, where if they take the time, if they get the time to know individuals, then they want to judge those individuals by their character.
The English people, a lot of them, would not be able to understand a word of spoken Shakespeare. There are people who do and I'm not denying they exist. But it's a far more philistine country than people think.
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