African Americans

"A linebacker's job is to knock out running backs, to knock out receivers, to chase the football."

"As a player, Ray Lewis was extremely well known for delivering jarring shots that immediately stopped the forward movement of opposing players. As a media member, now he's taking shots at the very core of opposition movements."

"Remove the word black and say 'lives matter'... Stop sending mothers back home empty. You can never replace a mother's child. If we want black lives matter, let's make it matter to us. That's the new call."

"People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids? … It’s just not right. It’s not right. It’s not, it’s not going to change anything. We’ll, we’ll get our justice … Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to beat it. Let’s try to work it out."

"I don't know any franchise players that come off the bench. I don't know any Olympian that comes off the bench. I don't know any All-Star that comes off the bench. I don't know any former MVP that comes off the bench. I don't know any three-time scoring champion that comes off the bench. I don't know any first team All-NBA (player) that comes off the bench. Why Allen Iverson?"

"You know, I've always told him (Larry Brown) I wanted the relationship that Michael Jackson... Michael Jordan, I'm sorry. … I wanted the same relationship with him like Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan had."

"Reporter: Could you be clear about your practicing habits since we can't see you practice?"

"You know, before when (the police went) to work, they used to be like, 'I'm gonna kick somebody's ass today and so I hope I can catch somebody in a bad situation or breaking the law, because I'm gonna beat someone's ass in a big way, I think that attitude has changed."

"It made me feel like I was back in slavery days."

"I saw a rainbow earlier today Lately those rainbows be comin' round like everyday Deep in the struggle I have found the beauty of me God is watchin' and the Devil finally let me be Here in this moment to myself"

"Be. If I could be Jesus for just a day and have it my way, if I Could be perfect, like the light — Jesus for a night and have It my way — if I could be Atop my mountain a phenomenon — when I walk on water I am Complete, at peace and I'd make it so you'd be just like me."

"Run the creature has come, there's no cover for you no prize When you've won."

"And baby, when I see ya I'm gonna love you all over the place And baby, when I see ya I'm gonna kiss you all over your face"

"I still Light up like a candle burnin when he calls me up I still Melt down like a candle burnin everytime we touch Oh say what you will He does me wrong and I should be gone I still Be lovin you baby and it's much too much"

"I try to say goodbye and I choke Try to walk away and I stumble Though I try to hide it, it's clear My world crumbles when you are not here"

"Jumps and turns aren't hard; artistry is. To create a whole new world for the audience, that's the fantasy of ballet."

"This latest skirmish in the high art/low art war has played out most fiercely over Mr. Tidwell, who shocked balletomanes when he left American Ballet Theater in 2005, then added insult to injury by joining the third season of “So You Think You Can Dance.”"

"In my opinion Danny was far and away the best."

"I know very well that I'm not the dancer that Danny is. He's on a completely different level. For the last four years, I've known who he is, and I just wanted to talk to him. So standing there with him tonight [as the final two] was the craziest thing."

"I think Sabra should have won."

"I don’t even know if I’ll ever feel what I did when he finished dancing his solo on Wednesday night’s [2007-08-15] show. When he left the ballet world, he was losing his love of dance, and to me, watching that solo, he came full circle. He came back.”"

"I think you're talking crap."

"You dance as if you've already won the competition."

"He just walked away like he was God's gift to the world."

"Book/Play2 (Book/Play2)"

"Book/Play1 (Book/Play1)"

"The ‘Romeo and Juliet’ story, we’re so past that. I have a very deep respect for art, but I also think we have a lot to learn from pop culture. And that is the future. Either you can ignore it and be stuck in the past, or you can learn from it."

"When I was younger, I got into a lot of trouble. Getting the opportunity to dance really got me out of that.”"

"O singers, resinous and soft your songs Above the sacred whisper of the pines, Give virgin lips to cornfield concubines, Bring dreams of Christ to dusky cane-lipped throngs."

"One seed becomes An everlasting song, a singing tree, Caroling softly souls of slavery, What they were, and what they are to me, Caroling softly souls of slavery."

"Superstition saw Something it had never seen before: Brown eyes that loved without a trace of fear, Beauty so sudden for that time of year."

"And there, a field rat, startled, squealing bleeds, His belly close to ground. I see the blade, Blood-stained, continue cutting weeds and shade"

"I don't think there's a quick fix to this. I don't think there's any simple way to deal with this. And I will not support amnesty for anybody, I mean, that would be rewarding bad behavior."

"Rep. James Clyburn, the state's only black congressman -- controls 20 percent to 25 percent of the primary vote."

"Since President Biden took office, daily coronavirus deaths have been reduced by 90 percent. The Administration’s comprehensive pandemic response has helped us to move beyond the crisis phase of the pandemic and focus on creating jobs, increasing wages, lowering costs, and taking other steps to help families emerge even stronger. Even as we celebrate these accomplishments and work to continue our progress, many Americans unfortunately continue to suffer from a condition known as Long COVID,” Chairman Clyburn said in his opening statement. “Our nation’s scientists are working to develop methods to reliably diagnose Long COVID, and trials are underway to test new treatments. Today’s hearing provides an opportunity to learn how we can support these research initiatives, guide health care workers, inform the public about Long COVID, and provide support to affected Americans."

"If we are going to run on Medicare for All, defund the police, socialized medicine, we’re not going to win"

"Education is the great equalizer, and shouldn’t be limited to the wealthiest few."

"Has he paid his dues? Is he black enough? … John Lewis and I were out there marching and organizing sit-ins back in the '60s so that his children and my children would not have to do it. … We would have been failures if [Obama] had to do the same things we did."

"I have no problems with private schools. I graduated from one and so did my mother."

"Today President Bush has failed the American people and especially people of color. Despite the lip service he and his party have given in recent weeks to building racial unity, his latest action seeks to perpetuate the current effects of past discrimination. … President Bush's decision to join this misguided attempt to resegregate our public institutions is regrettable."

"We shall have our manhood. We shall have it or the earth will be leveled by our attempts to gain it."

"You are axes, in a world of wood. And the wood remembers when it has been cut, even if the axe forgets."

"I consider myself a pretty rounded guy. I've done pretty elite things in business, sport and academics and all of a sudden I woke up one morning and I'm a 'big, black, British, gay guy'. That was frustrating at times"

"Shortly before the publication of his book, Cleaver had brokered an important black-white alliance in California. The New Left there had formed a political party, the Peace and Freedom Party, which had gathered one hundred thousand signatures to put its candidates on the California ballot. Through Cleaver, the party was able to establish a coalition with the Black Panthers, by agreeing to the Panther platform of exempting blacks from the military, freeing all blacks from prison, and demanding that all future trials of blacks be held with an all-black jury. Cleaver was to be nominated as the party’s presidential candidate, with Jerry Rubin as his running mate. Cleaver’s new wife, Kathleen, a SNCC worker, was to be a state assembly candidate, as was Black Panther Bobby Seale. It was during Cleaver’s campaign that he called for “pussy power” at an event he labeled “Pre-erection Day” and an alliance with “Machine Gun Kellys”—that is, anyone with firearms who was willing to use them. In October he received loud applause from a packed theater with an overflowing crowd at Stanford University, when he said of the governor of California, “Ronald Reagan is a punk, a sissy, and a coward, and I challenge him to a duel to the death or until he says Uncle Eldridge. I give him a choice of weapons—a gun, a knife, a baseball bat, or marshmallows.” 1968 was the best year Eldridge Cleaver had. The following year, accused of involvement in a Black Panther shoot-out in Oakland, he fled to Cuba and then to Algeria. By the time he finally returned to the United States in 1975, he had no following left."

"Eldridge Cleaver became a sixties icon largely through his literary ability. Cleaver first went to prison at the age of eighteen for smoking marijuana. He later went back for rape. Released from prison in 1966, he joined the staff of the counterculture magazine Ramparts—famous for being charged with a crime for its 1968 cover of burning draft cards. The magazine staff encouraged him to publish the essays he had written while in prison, essays that expressed harsh self-criticism along with harsh criticism of the world that created him. Cleaver was virtually unknown until 1968, when his book of essays, Soul on Ice, was published and he was credited by critics, including in The New York Times Book Review, with a brash but articulate voice. His timing was perfect: In 1968, what was wrong with American society was a leading question in America. A June Gallup poll showed that white people by a ratio of three to two did not believe America was “sick,” but black people by a ratio of eight to seven did. Soul on Ice was published at almost the exact same moment as the Kerner Report on racial violence and, as The New York Times review pointed out, confirmed its findings. “Look into a mirror,” wrote Cleaver. “The cause is you, Mr. and Mrs. Yesterday, you, with your forked tongues.”"

"a man addicted to the most irresponsible rhetoric"

"There are a lot of ways in which repression can express itself. It does not necessarily mean being shot down; it does not even necessarily mean being sentenced to prison. It can mean being detained for so long that one cannot be effective in the community. It could mean being forced into exile as Eldridge Cleaver was forced into exile, and we see what has happened to Eldridge and what his exile has meant for this ability to be effective in the Black liberation struggle here. There are a myriad of ways in which you can repress a developing liberation movement."

"In Soul on Ice, Eldrige Cleaver pointed out how America’s racial and sexual stereotypes were supposed to work. Whether his insight is correct or not, it bears close examination."

"My real difficulty with Cleaver, sadly, was wished on me by the kids who were following him, while he was calling me a faggot and the rest of it. I would come to a town to speak, Cleveland, let's say and he would've been standing on the very same stage a couple of days earlier. I had to try to undo the damage I considered he was doing. I was handicapped with Soul On Ice, because what I might have said in those years about Eldridge would have been taken as an answer to his attack on me. So I never answered it, and I'm not answering it now."

"I can understand J. Edgar Hoover, because he wasn't inaccurate.… He said that we were the main threat. We were trying to be the main threat. We were trying to be the vanguard organization. J. Edgar Hoover was an adversary, but he had good information. We were plugged into all of the revolutionary groups in America, plus those abroad. We were working hand-in-hand with communist parties here and around the world, and he knew that."