A Quote by George Ayittey

The 'Cheetah Generation' refers to the new and angry generation of young African graduates and professionals, who look at African issues and problems from a totally different and unique perspective.

George Ayittey

Quote Topics

African Angry Different Generation Graduates Issues Look New Perspective Problems Professionals Totally Unique Unique Perspective Young

Quote Author

George Ayittey
Ghanaian - Economist
Born: 1945

What we are trying to do now, this new generation of African writers, is to write about what it is to be a human being living in a particular African country. These are stories that resonate with anyone, anywhere.

Petina Gappah

What I want to do is basically tell my generation's story about how music and culture helped affect a generation, and a generation that's so profound, that it went on to elect the first African-American president.

Steve Stoute

The African-American is often used, and has conspired with the rest of America to be used, as a diversion from America's problems. I wish African-Americans would stop contributing to this sideshow. I also wish all African-Americans would cease to sing and dance just for a generation. I think we provide too much entertainment.

Jamaica Kincaid

When I looked at 'Dear White People,' you have four African-American students who are all very different and who are trying to figure out who they are. They're dealing with identity issues and crises. That is exciting to me, to see African-American young people on a page, on a screen, who are so diverse and whose stories are all so different.

Teyonah Parris

Take, for example, the African jungle, the home of the cheetah. On whom does the cheetah prey? The old, the sick, the wounded, the weak, the very young, but never the strong. Lesson: If you would not be prey, you had better be strong.

G. Gordon Liddy

Unity will not make us rich, but it can make it difficult for Africa and the African peoples to be disregarded and humiliated. And it will, therefore, increase the effectiveness of the decisions we make and try to implement for our development. My generation led Africa to political freedom. The current generation of leaders and peoples of Africa must pick up the flickering torch of African freedom, refuel it with their enthusiasm and determination, and carry it forward.

Julius Nyerere

So in Jamaica it is the aim of everybody to talk English, act English and look English. And that last specification is where the greatest difficulties arise. It is not so difficult to put a coat of European culture over African culture, but it is next to impossible to lay a European face over an African face in the same generation.

Zora Neale Hurston

Writing has always been a serious business for me. I felt it was a moral obligation. A major concern of the time was the absence of the African voice. Being part of that dialogue meant not only sitting at the table but effectively telling the African story from an African perspective - in full earshot of the world.

Chinua Achebe

After Nigeria, we are the second biggest black African nation. We are the headquarters of the African Union. We are the only African country that has never been colonized. This is perhaps the last surviving African civilization.

Meles Zenawi

As far as being an African artist, my inspiration has been the fact that I'm a part of the generation that will put Nigerian African music on a global scale. It's been a long road for us, but I believe we're finally at that point where we can showcase our music to the world and get international recognition.

Iceberg Slim

Science fiction is the only genre that enables African writers to envision a future from our African perspective.

Nnedi Okorafor

One of the things that made the Black Muslim movement grow was its emphasis upon things African. This was the secret to the growth of the Black Muslim movement. African blood, African origin, African culture, African ties. And you'd be surprised - we discovered that deep within the subconscious of the black man in this country, he is still more African than he is American.

Malcolm X

Today's children are living a childhood of firsts. They are the first daycare generation; the first truly multicultural generation; the first generation to grow up in the electronic bubble, the environment defined by computers and new forms of television; the first post-sexual revolution generation; the first generation for which nature is more abstraction than reality; the first generation to grow up in new kinds of dispersed, deconcentrated cities, not quite urban, rural, or suburban.

Richard Louv

Many, many people of the Revolutionary generation, the generation that fought in the Revolutionary War, understood that slavery was somehow in contradiction to what America was saying it was. And many of those folks also, at the very least, gave land to African Americans when they were liberated.

Ta-Nehisi Coates

For me it's hard, especially being a young African-American woman. My dad doesn't look like what you might call the 'safe' African-American male that America would accept, if you know what I mean.