African Americans

"There's a lot of research out there that says yes there is harm, there is risk. There are a hundred deaths each year from male circumcision. It's not a separate show. You're saying we're abusing girls. You are accepting that it is okay to perform a much more intensive or invasive procedure on boys. I think if we accept it, in American society, that we do remove the foreskin on boys, we do practice genital cutting here in the US on boys, that it should not be impossible to understand that there are cultures, there are societies, that practice what certain people are now calling gender-inclusive surgery. So it's okay to cut boys in your society? In our culture we don't discriminate. We have gender-egalitarian surgeries."

"They wrote me off, I ain't write back though."

"I can't say it was tough because I have been so blessed. Honestly, my tough times would be a dream to someone else. I never will look at it as something that was too hard for me or really tough because throughout that time, I was still enjoying my life and still in the NFL."

"I'm always the guy that I believe the game gets settled between the white lines on game day. But from my vantage point, we've got a really, really good team. I don't know if we'll shock anyone inside of this building, but maybe shock some outsiders. But it's good, like let them sleep. I don't want them to see us coming. We're just working in the shadows right now, getting our game right, and when it's time to go in those bright lights, I think we'll be ready."

"Geno Smith: incredibly underrated quarterback. Part of the reason he struggled at times in Seattle, huge part of the reason, biggest reason was their offensive line was so bad, he faced one of the highest quick-pressure rates in football. When he was kept clean, his numbers were up there with anyone. Accurate, experienced veteran quarterback. Absolutely love this for the Raiders, absolutely hate it for the Seattle Seahawks."

"I want to get louder I got to get louder We 'bout to go up baby, up we go We 'bout to go up baby, up we goWe're blowing out speakers Our heart a little clearer We 'bout to go up baby, up we go We 'bout to go up baby, up we goFor worst or for better Gonna give it to you In capital letters"

"I'm very excited about the fact that this is just a very small taste of what's to come. I cannot wait to put music out. It's been a long time coming. It is absolutely going to represent a new era. I've been living with what I've been working on for years now, a couple years, which I really do feel I needed in order to get to where I'm at with the music. And though it is rather frustrating. I have the most patient fans, I don't know how but I got so lucky."

"From 8 to about 12, I learned very quickly what rejection felt like, what going into a room full of adults expecting a lot out of you felt like. I realized that I'd be in these situations where I had to present myself as someone who, whether I was or wasn't, is confident enough to follow through with the job that I was trying to get."

"The new music I have coming, I’ve been working on. All my fans know and they are waiting so patiently or impatiently actually. Its kind of an never-ending process really. I continue to grow each and every day as a write and as a person. There’s more that I want to talk about. There’s more that I am comfortable talking about. I’m constantly being inspired by new artists and producers. I’m definitely taking my time with this."

"With [my] music, I feel like I get to be myself, tell my own story, and take my life experiences and not put them into another story but into my own words."

"I think finding your balance is truly about finding your happiness and being patient with yourself and being kind to yourself. It is a term that we hear a lot along with a lot of suggestions as to maybe how to find that balance, but I think you are the one, the only one, that can really define what that is for you."

"I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you Don't need no butterflies when you give me the whole damn zoo By the way, right away, you do things to my body I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted youBy the way, right away, you do things to my body I didn't know that I was starving till I tasted you"

"I've never left a workout or a gym session feeling anything other than great and happier. Just knowing what my body is capable of and being able to challenge myself…it does something for you mentally that not a lot of other things do."

"Gonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else (hey) Gonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else (I love me) Can't help myself, no, I don't need anybody else Anytime, day or nightGonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else (hey) Gonna love myself, no, I don't need anybody else (I love me) Can't help myself, no, I don't need anybody else Anytime that I like (I love me)"

"I’m nothing like my character. Oh no!"

"…It’s an interesting story. I think that people are gonna love [it]."

"What an amazing night and what an improbable journey. It’s because you believed that I stand here humbled and grateful to become the 63rd governor of the state of Maryland"

"Nah, it wasn’t a collapsed lung. I had an auto-immune disease called sarcoidosis. It’s a disease when my immune system works too much, but it doesn’t have anything to fight off. It starts attacking your healthy organs – your lungs, your heart, whatever. In my case, it started attacking my lungs, and I was going through it for a while. Coughing, crazy chest pains. I’m good now. I’m actually still on medication, but everything is good now."

"Of course Eazy E and mainly because he saw leadership in me even though we had such a brief time together. I just feel I would be up there with the richest in the game if we had more conversations. Another person is Russell Simmons. He allowed me to be a part of his Hip-Hop summits awhile back and that really stuck with me. I’ve always admired the CEO’s of the labels; the James Princes’, Puffys and Master P’s–the leaders and shot callers. Uncle Rush gave me knowledge in that little time I spent around him. I don’t think he would know how much he affected me with the financial literacy I learned when he was starting the rush card and we were rocking Phat Farm. He’s a Legendary Hip Hop Pioneer."

"At first I didn’t like it at all I felt it divided us as a people, that it sped us up to the point that we lost our morality. But now, I love it especially from the POV of my business I get to be independent on a level of controlling my destiny. We made a lot of people very rich! Of course social media has its pros and cons but that’s with everything. So I just take advantage of what benefits me and my family and block out the dumb shit."

"But the need for this committee to hear from Donald Trump goes beyond our fact finding. This is a question about accountability to the American people. He must be accountable. He is required to answer for his actions. He's required to answer to those police officers who put their lives and bodies on the line to defend our democracy."

"Damn G, the spot's getting hot/So how the fuck am I supposed to make a knot?/Police looking at niggas through a microscope/In L.A. everybody and they momma sell dope/They trying to stop it/So what the fuck can I do to make a profit?/Catch a flight to St. Louis/That's cool, cause nobody knew us."

"We must maximize our efforts to counter violent extremism, radicalization and recruitment in the United States, and stop using xenophobia and ethnic stereotyping. If we are going to move forward and protect this nation, we must recognize trends in terrorist activity."

"The carefully orchestrated series of events that unfolded at the Save America rally and the storming of the Capitol was no accident or coincidence. It was the intended and foreseeable culmination of a carefully coordinated campaign to interfere with the legal process required to confirm the tally of votes cast in the Electoral College"

"Imagine if your mayor lost a reelection bid, but instead of conceding the race, they picked up the phone, called the district attorney, and said: 'I want you to say this election was stolen. I want you to tell the Board of Elections not to certify the results'. That's essentially what Donald Trump was trying to do with the election for president of the United States. It was a brazen attempt to use the Justice Department to advance the president's personal political agenda."

"After the brutal one-sided police response to protests in 2020, some of us believe that the Mountaintop Station was overdue"

"As a black man, I am not scared of another person because their race or ethnicity, but this man IS threatening with his body language and screaming. I don’t know Amy Cooper at all, I’ve said hello to her because that’s what dog owners do to other owners in the park, but when I saw that video, I thought, I cannot imagine if he approached her the same way how she may have genuinely been afraid for her life. people need to understand this man is a dick and probably did threaten her. You can read his Facebook post where he tells the world he told her “you’re not gonna like what I’m going to do next.” That’s a threat. And she has no idea if this man is pulling out a knife, a gun, or a treat that (sic) laced with a rat poison. If I wasn’t who I was, I would of called the police on that guy too. Sure, we’re breaking the rules by having our dogs off leash in a park that has 80% of its area off-leash hours, but that gives that guy no authority to accost people in such manner. My two fellow dog owners have had similar situations with this man, but don’t feel comfortable coming forward because they’re white."

"Christian Cooper’s encounter in Central Park was another wake-up call for our nation and a reminder of the work that remains to root out hate and intolerance. I'm grateful for Christian's support and know with folks like him leading the way, we'll get the job done."

"I’m eager for a president who’ll nurture his capacity for growth in our nation itself. That’s why I support Joe Biden."

"But as his poise in the infamous video reveals, Cooper is well-suited to this teachable moment for America. As a gay black birder, and as someone who has helped comic books become more inclusive, he knows the cultural forces that try to reduce him to something he’s not — and has the will and the confidence to defy them."

"Look, if you're going to do what you want, I'm going to do what I want, but you're not going to like it."

"Suddenly I heard this loud booming voice behind me, y'know, screaming something to the effect of, y'know, "GET OUT OF HERE! YOU SHOULDN'T BE HERE!" or something like that. Whenever you hear something loud you naturally just startle a little bit, and I turned around and immediately saw, y'know, this man standing there, looking, y'know, like he's VERY annoyed that I'm in there invading the space. And then he uttered something that, y'know, sounds to me like a threat. That's he's going to do something to me I'm not gonna like, and I'm like woah-woah-woah and I'm trying to figure out what does that mean? Is it a physical attack on me? Is that to my dog? What is he about to do Before I could even figure it out and process this, he has this giant... I don't know if it was as fannypack-slash-knapsack that's on his front and he pulls out dog treats. I'm like -what the heck is this guy doing?- and I look up and y'know he's holding these dog treats in one hand and a BIKE helmet in his other hand, and I'm thinking -oh my gosh, is this guy like, going to like, lure my dog over and try to like, hit him with his bike helmet?- And if my dog gets over there am I gonna get hit by this bike helmet if I end up over there?"

"I wouldn’t say it was on a negative — back in the days, when I was having my little spat with Quik — this is way before we got cool […] Back in my heyday, I was a Crip; he was a Blood. Suge and them was Bloods. That was just the nature of Compton."

"He threatened her, I thought, stunned. He says himself that he approached her — a woman alone in a wooded area. He tried to lure away her dog. How was this the first time I was reading these details? Had I just missed them in the other stories I’d read? I started looking at the Cooper coverage more critically. A Washington Post article summarized the conflict this way: Christian Cooper “approached the dog’s owner early on Monday with a request: Could she leash up the canine, as the park rules required? Amy Cooper said she would be calling the police instead.” The implication of this and most other accounts was that Amy Cooper called the police simply because he’d asked her to leash her dog. And even though the article included a link to Christian’s Facebook post, the text of the article failed to mention the threat at all. Why had the Post left it out?"

"He told me to pull over and a couple of dudes walked up on my car, and he just wanted to tell me as far as the situation that was going down with me and Quik, the affiliations, it wouldn’t be trickled over into my mom’s place of residence."

"I'm not excusing the racism"

"Interviewed in the mid-1990s, Richard Price, author of the novel Clockers and, with Spike Lee, co-author of the screenplay for its film adaptation, addresses the social basis on which young black people are represented in the film:"

"They say I gotta learn, but nobody's here to teach me If they can't understand it, how can they reach me I guess they can't, I guess they won't I guess they front, that's why I know my life is out of luck, fool."

"As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life and realize there's not much left 'Cause I've been blastin' and laughin' so long, that Even my mama thinks that my mind is gone But I ain't never crossed a man that didn't deserve it Me be treated like a punk, you know that's unheard of You better watch how you're talkin', and where you're walkin' Or you and your homies might be lined in chalk."

"Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise Been spendin' most their lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise Keep spendin' most our lives, livin' in the gangsta's paradise."

"I feel that in today’s time, what people are most selfish with is information. Nobody wants to give information. You got to ask for it. If you ask for it, then, “All right, maybe, maybe I’ll tell you some stuff”, but it’s a search and find."

"Understanding that we’re in control and that, at the end of the day, it’s you against you. If you are putting yourself in a position to be the best version of yourself, then it means you’re understanding yourself. And understanding yourself means that life isn’t perfect and it’s never gonna be perfect, but it’s about progression."

"Avoid the simple problems, because they become the big problems."

"When you start doing it for the perceptions of others, you’re never going to win. Your biggest believer in what you do should be you."

"When God talks, you got to listen, and I swear life is funny. Because some of the craziest things that happen to you end up being the things that you needed most. And in this case, I honestly feel like God basically told me to sit down."

"Black death has been pimped by corporations, and young people think that the street credibility is … a thing that will ride them into some kind of profitability in life."

"Black manhood: … the corporations [believe] they've found a way … [to] put soul in a bottle. If they can put soul in a bottle, … they can put manhood in a bottle—and then show the bottle in advertising."

"Here, Sir, you behold hundreds of poor children of Africa sharing with those of a lighter hue in the blessings of education; and, while it will be our great pleasure to remember the great deeds you have done for America, it will be our delight also to cherish the memory of General Lafayette as a friend to African emancipation and as a member of this institution."

"history of human slavery spawned environmental racism in the United States."

"Environmental justice becomes a major point of contention for us in that we have to ask the question: if we were in Boston, for example, in an area that was mostly white, how long would it take for them to clean up that city? We were promised initially that in three months the Army Corps of Engineers would come in. It would take them three months to remove the topsoil and sweep the streets clean so that we can return. Then, all of the sudden, the whole discussion about contaminants completely disappeared, but the contaminants are still here."