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African americans Quote by Ann Petry

““She supposed the young colored men of Link's generation couldn't have manners like Mr. Powther's, though she didn't know why. Wars and atom bombs and the fact that there was so much hate in the world might have something to do with it. There were times when she had thought that rudeness was a characteristic of Link's; that other young men had a natural courtesy he would never have. Then she would see or hear something in The Narrows that suggested all these young men were alike--something had brutalized them. But what?””

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A man hasn't got a corner on virtue just because his shoes are shined.

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“This was, by comparison, a safe, secure, clean world. And looking at it, she thought it must be rather pleasant to be able to…

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“She held the paper in her hand for a long time, trying to follow the reasoning by which that thin ragged boy had become in the eyes of a reporter a 'burly Negro.' And she decided that it all depended on where you sat how these things looked. If you looked at them from inside the framework of a fat…

“The attendant looked at Camilo, looked at Link, blandly, incuriously. Link thought, In New York all the black boys who go in for what they like to call Caddies also go in for white girls. So this is old hat to him. He figures that if I'm rich enough--numbers or women or rackets of one kind or another--to drive one…

All life goes in a circle, around and around, you started at one place, and then came right back to it again.

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“Doesn't the female always take what she wants and at the same time try to hang on to what she already has?”

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All truly great art is propaganda.

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Folks differs, dearie. They differs a lot. Some can stand things that others can't. There's never no way of knowin' how much they can…

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Everything you ever had, everything you ever lost. It's all there in the trumpet--pain and hate and trouble and peace and quiet and love.

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“The women work because the white folks give them jobs—washing dishes and clothes and floors and windows. The women work because for years now…

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“And she got the feeling that Boots Smith's relationship to this swiftly moving car was no ordinary one. He wasn't just a black man…

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It may be changing, but still it's the one place, that total control of an institution, that African Americans have. So sometimes, you know,…

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“Alabama in 1927 alone, 27,701 men were arrested on misdemeanor charges and offered for sale by county sheriffs. In Blackmon’s estimation, “roughly half of…

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For people of color - especially African Americans - the idea that racist cops might frame members of their community is no abstract notion,…

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“He (Zerubavel) draws attention to the social influences on perception (what people notice), attention and concern (what people care about), classification (how people categorize things, meanings, memories - what to remember, what to forget, how to feel about it), and time (how people place things in the past or future). For example, many African Americans regard slavery as a relatively…

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African Americans are doing a lot already, but I think we have an opportunity right now to change politics in a way that will…

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Since the nations founding, African Americans repeatedly have been controlled through institutions such as slavery and Jim Crow, which appear to die but then…

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You take a look at the history of African Americans in the US. There's been about thirty years of relative freedom. There was a…

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Michael Schultz's 'Cooley High' is a classic. Oftentimes, we don't get to see films about coming of age, especially for young African Americans.

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The police killings of unarmed African Americans has got to stop.

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