Henry Louis Gates Jr. Quotes

I was raised with this idea that we're supposed to be tolerant of other people's opinions, but then what happens if other people's opinions are racist and hateful and wrong?

Let me just say, at once: I am not now nor have I ever been a white man. And, leaving aside the joys of unearned privilege, this leaves me feeling pretty good.

You can't have too many books featuring people of color, just like you can't have too many books featuring white people.

Modern liberal societies cannot be based on a simple assertion of group identity - the very idea of the rule of law, of equal legal treatment for everyone regardless of religion, wealth, gender or ethnicity, conflicts with it.

The fight for a truly inclusive nation that embraces its diversity is not over and perhaps will never be.

I never think of people's nationality too much. I always look at everybody the same. It's impossible for me to just say one group of people over separate groups of people. Maybe it's because I was raised in New York City which is this melting pot. Everybody was always the same and the whole point of my whole film existence was to say that we're just one race.

The white Christian heterosexual married male is the epitome of everything right with America!

Can't be all men, can't be all white, can't be all black, can't be all straight. [It has] got to be a wide range of people. Can't be all people of one faith group. We need diversity so we can have the views of all Americans reflected in congressional outcomes.

"Not being virulently and overtly racist against black people" and "treating gay people like human beings" are necessary conditions of greatness.

Every now and then, you get people who tend to forget what this country is about, which is a melting pot of races and cultures and freedom of speech.

There's the continuing challenges of racism, of sexism, of discrimination against the LGBT community, of the way that we treat people as opposed to how we want to be treated.

I realize that I'm black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and that's everybody's wish... I try to be a role model for black kids, white kids, yellow kids, green kids. This is what I felt was good about my personality.

Being a sanctuary city, for the people of organize and run it, is a great source of pride. 'Social justice! Fairness, equality, diversity!" All the things that make liberals great people and make you a schlub. The more pressures and demands on their social services, the better people they are.

Most men in this world are colored. A belief in humanity means a belief in colored men. The future world will, in all reasonable probability, be what colored men make it.

Life's piano can only produce melodies of brotherhood (and sisterhood) when it is recognized that the black keys are as basic, necessary and beautiful as the white keys.

If white and black and red and brown can come together to focus our energies on overcoming the racial malaise that persists, then this will have been a great moment.

We ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get in back, when brown can stick around... when yellow will be mellow... when the red man can get ahead, man; and when white will embrace what is right.

The pursuit of otherness, the sense that we are somehow different than our brothers and sisters, no matter where we find them, allows for all the other great evils: racism, sexism, homophobia, violence against gay people and against women.

God is liberal of color; so should man be.

I felt, implicitly, or not so implicitly, that subjects about women and other races were out of my jurisdiction as a creator. That if I moved too far from my own experience, and my own established identity, I would be criticized for taking even more of those wedding pies from others.

I don't sign for white people.

At the end of the day, if millions of people come together and say, we are not going to be a xenophobic society, we are not going to be throwing millions of Latinos out of this country, we are not going to be a racist society, we're not going to be a sexist society, we will prevail.

In any marginalized community, whether people identify themselves or not affects us all.

To stand together against homophobic, sexist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic and racist agendas. I’m an optimist and I can’t help but feel hopeful about the future of film - especially looking at all the beautiful people in this room. Martin Luther King Jr. said, ‘Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.’ I would like to encourage everyone in this room to please speak up.

I sort of feel like that's the most revolutionary thing we can do with our narrative for me as Black people is to show that we are just like you.