A Quote by Lynn Swann

We talk about freedoms for African-Americans but unless you have more than one option politically, how free are you? — © Lynn Swann
We talk about freedoms for African-Americans but unless you have more than one option politically, how free are you?
Indians were here first - it's about time. We're way behind the African Americans and Hispanic Americans in getting politically involved, but we're beginning to take a page out of their notebook.
Did you see, after this horrific tragedy in Boston, that [Barack] Obama cannot utter the word 'terrorist.' It's not politically correct. He even called the Fort Hood murderer 'workplace violence.' Because it's politically incorrect to talk about 'jihad,' or to talk about 'terrorist,' or to talk about 'the war on terror.' He won't say those words, because they're politically incorrect.
Today there are more African-Americans under correctional control, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. There are millions of African-Americans now cycling in and out of prisons and jails or under correctional control or saddled with criminal records. In major American cities today, more than half of working-age African-American men either are under correctional control or are branded felons, and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives.
Politically, I don't care what party you're from, offer a point of view and let's see what happens and really debate the issues rather than use personal attacks. Really talk about it, talk about immigration, talk about education, talk about pollution.
When African-Americans come to France, the French show them more consideration than they would show an African or a Black Caribbean. When African-Americans come to France, the French people are like, 'Oh, wow. Oh my God.' But if it's an African, they're like, 'Whatever.' It's all because of the past, because of our history.
African-Americans are not a monolithic group. So, we tend to talk about the black community, the black culture, the African-American television viewing audience, but there are just as many facets of us as there are other cultures.
I think the American people would be compassionate and practical. But we need to be talking about assimilation as well, something that is politically incorrect, I know, to say that people should learn English, should learn American exceptionalism, shouldn't come here to use our freedoms to undermine the freedoms we give to everybody. But there's nothing wrong with saying people who want to come here should want to be Americans.
Trump's dividing us. Yes, but people were already divided; Trump just expressed that division. And we have to find a way to, within a very heterogeneous party, even though we're the minority, we're a much more diverse party, of course, than the Republicans are. How do we talk about universal programs, have a universal message, and make sure we're talking about recent immigrants and non-immigrants, African-Americans, Latinos, LGBT people, as well? To me, that is a serious problem.
Unless we retain a vibrant desire to be free, and unless we understand and practice the principles that give life to essential freedoms, we have little reason to hope they will endure.
I can do an hour-long speech about Democrats taking African Americans for granted, and I'd have a line behind me of very prominent African-Americans who would say, 'Amen.'
It saddens me that African Americans - when they express their pain, when they protest about police violence, when they question inequality, when they raise issues of bondage and discrimination - African Americans are seen as not patriotic.
When you talk about evangelicals, don't forget that a significant proportion of the evangelical community is African American. And most African Americans - well over 90 percent, thoroughly evangelical, thoroughly biblical - will probably vote Democratic.
Constitutional rights are useful up to a point, but they do not serve to guarantee much more than what could be called the bourgeois conception of freedom. According to the bourgeois conception, a "free" man is essentially an element of a social machine and has only a certain set of prescribed and delimited freedoms; freedoms that are designed to serve the needs of the social machine more than those of the individual.
I'm looking into making toilet paper. It's not an option unless you a bum and gotta use newspaper. It's not an option. Like, it's an option if you wanna drive a car. It's an option if you wanna use a straw. It's an option if you wanna wear a pair of Nikes or Reeboks.
Once you have some sort of reputation in the outside world, they will try to woo you. They will say, "Won't you come and be on a talk program about books? That's not political." Then they can say to the outside world, "See how free it is, she appears on television. See how free it is." So I refused to have anything of mine read or dramatized on South African television.
We [Americans] continue to be harangued by politicians about how Americans must fight this war because we're being attacked because we have freedoms and liberties and women in the workplace and a whole list of ephemera that have nothing to do with this war at all.
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