A Quote by Spike Lee
One of the great things about African-Americans is that we've always had this attitude: We make do with what we got. It comes from our ancestors being slaves.
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I think 99.9% of our law enforcement officers are great Americans. Many of them are African American, Hispanic, Asian, they're working the toughest neighborhood, they've got the hardest jobs to do in this country and I think they're amazing, great Americans.
People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. They have a particular culture that infuses the whole culture and makes it richer and more interesting. I think if we can expand that attitude to embrace African-Americans and Latino-Americans and Asian-Americans, then we will be in a position where all our kids can feel comfortable with the worlds they are coming out of, knowing they are part of something larger.
I'm so tired of the left trying to divide us by race. One of the things I said today in my speech, we're not Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans, rich Americans, poor Americans. We're all Americans.
I don't think there are any pure Africans of the African Americans, but the African part of our history was pretty much taken away from us during slavery, so the 60s gave us a chance, because of the civil rights movement, to kind of re-examine and make some sort of formal connection to our African-ness.
I always understood my ancestry, like that of so many others in the Gulf Coast, to be a tangle of African slaves, free men of color, French and Spanish immigrants, British colonists, Native Americans - but in what proportion, and what might that proportion tell me about who I thought I was?
Mike Tyson always had a big heart, but one of his problems is that he's short. And he's got kind of a personal attitude. But that don't make him a great fighter.
There's a history of enslaved African-Americans having to make their slave masters comfortable. This business of what we call skinning and grinning - that is something African-Americans are very much cognizant of.
The national media which I consider to be very racist against European Americans and I think they have caused the incitement of African Americans against European Americans.I also think that they have also facilitated European Americans being angry at African Americans.
I've reached a point in my life where it's the little things that matter... I was always a rebel and probably could have got much farther had I changed my attitude. But when you think about it, I got pretty far without changing attitudes. I'm happier with that.
We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite.
As African-Americans, we don't start with a blank slate, while other people may. In our position, there's always some sort of stereotype that is being scrutinized or that is being assumed when we come through the curtain.
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.'
When it comes to African Americans and African American actors, Hollywood has always felt that if you can make us laugh, that's fine, but we don't need to see you do a 'Schindler's List,' where there's no jokes or music or comedic through-line.
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.
I realize the importance of retelling those stories is so that, one, we don't forget what our ancestors had to do so we can be where we are, and two, to just educate the newer generation. I'm being educated by all these films ['Race' and 'Selma'] and the things I've had the opportunity to be a part of, and kids even younger than me are being educated, too. It's important to make sure those stories never die.
I can't deny that it will be a historic event for an African-American to become president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud - not just African-Americans, but all Americans - that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It will also not only electrify our country, I think it'll electrify the world.
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