A Quote by Paula Kelly
I found myself defending America a lot in England. They were always asking me racial questions. I'd say, 'You've got prejudice here, too. At least in America we're trying to deal with it.'
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We've yet to deal with the uncomfortable history of England being involved in the transatlantic slave trade, whereas America has at least made some movies dealing with its racial history.
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We have to be as militant defending America as the enemies of America are in trying to destroy America.
Diversity means, when the left teaches it, the people responsible for building America and maintaining it get the short end of the stick from now on. With this singular American culture that people came and wanted to be part of, they were proud, couldn't wait to become Americans, tears in their eyes when it happened. It was a special place. Defending it now, defending that America, defending our cultural, defending our founding, defending all of the things that made this country great is now called racism or xenophobia or hate.
The only part of my mother's experience that still gets to me is the way she and people like her were looked down upon for asking America to be America, for asking for full and equal participation in our democracy.
The strange thing about my life is that I came to America at about the time when racial attitudes were changing. This was a big help to me. Also, the people who were most cruel to me when I first came to America were black Americans. They made absolute fun of the way I talked, the way I dressed. I couldn't dance. The people who were most kind and loving to me were white people. So what can one make of that? Perhaps it was a coincidence that all the people who found me strange were black and all the people who didn't were white.
So when I say that I think we would have a different ethical level, particularly in corporate America, if there were more women involved, I mean that what women are best at is asking questions. Women ask questions over and over again. It drives men nuts. Women tend to ask the detailed questions; they want to know the answers.
I was always a hard worker, and that's why I got invited to come to America. My uncle actually said, 'You've to go to America. You work like this in America, you're gonna make a lot more money.'
If you were asking me how it is to be a Muslim in America, it's much harder to be a North African in France than to be a foreigner here in America.
As commander-in-chief, I will do whatever it takes to defend America. But in defending America, we cannot lose what America stands for.
I've found a lot of the thinking in America is that a lot of people become actors to become famous. At least from my experience, I have a dozen or so British friends who are actors, and if you look at their body of work, and they'll go do theatre, and they'll go do this and this. They work, and they're always honing and trying to be better.
I'm not going to waste my time trying 'break' America, you know what I mean? Too many people have died trying to break America. America doesn't break unless it wants to.
The problem of racial difference in America - and in modern life more broadly - is always presented as an economic, political, biological or cultural problem. But I want to say that it's at least as much a philosophical and imaginative disaster.
At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time.
I obviously wouldn't say on nationwide TV that I thought America was racist, sexist, homophobic and violent if they asked me why I left. I would just say America wasn't a culture I felt comfortable in. But anybody with a brain would understand what I'm trying to say.
I remember at the time of 9/11 that there were women who went out of their way to escort Muslim women to grocery stores because they wanted to be sure that they didn't experience any prejudice. And so I'm not one who believes that America is a country that's intolerant. It's the most tolerant country in the world, and I really think that it's unfortunate that a number of people are trying to paint America with this brush. I just don't see it.
