#hi

If you share a common ancestor with somebody, you're related to them. It doesn't mean that you're going to invite them to the family reunion, but it means that you share DNA. I think it's fascinating. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#dna #family #fascinating #going #i

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#black #people #people say #say #surprise

It's not white versus black any more, it's haves versus have-nots. Unless the black middle-classes unite to promote the interests of the black underclass, tension between them is inevitable. What we, the black middle class have to do, is think of a strategy to avert that. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#avert #between #black #class #inevitable

Keeping the Union together, freeing slaves and being assassinated all added up to creating 'Lincoln the myth.' He overcame a lot of his own prejudices and became what many would consider the first black man's president. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#assassinated #became #being #black #consider

My father and I made genetics history. We were the first African-Americans and the first father and son anywhere to have their genomes sequenced. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#father #father and son #first #genetics #history

My father lived to be 97 and played bridge every day up to the end, so I've got a 50 percent chance of living a long life like him. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#chance #day #end #every #every day

One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#been #black #complicated #does #ennoble

Patriotism is best exemplified through auto-critique. When you're willing to stand up within the group and say, 'It is wrong for Black people to be anti-Semitic,' or 'It is wrong for America to discriminate against persons of African descent and made them slaves and based its wealth upon free labor,' it's crucial to say that. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#against #america #anti-semitic #based #best

Politicians will not put forth programs aimed at the problems of poor blacks while their turnout remains so low. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#blacks #forth #low #politicians #poor

Really, the values under which my generation was raised in the '50s were immigrant values even though we weren't immigrants. The greatest thing you could be was a college-educated Negro. ↗

— Henry Louis Gates

#even #generation #greatest #greatest thing #immigrant