Black AF History Quotes

“History can never be objective or unbiased because, no matter how hard the storytellers may try, the perception of reality prejudices all stories. The academic field of history is dominated by white men handicapped by the inability to see whiteness’s impact on America’s biography. The best historians try to approximate the truth by unbending the collection of funhouse mirrors through which the past has been viewed, but it isn’t simply a counterfeit version of history, it is a fable that erases the reflection of an entire people to ensure that the mythology of the heroes lives happily ever after.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“What we do know for sure is that both African and Native American populations had one thing in common: resistance.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Even though he had done nothing, Vespucci’s name would be entrenched in history, making his namesake the perfect one for a country built on deception and lies.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“The Mis-Education of the Negro, in which Carter G. Woodson explains that in the American education system, the entirety of Black people’s existence “is studied only as a problem or dismissed as of little consequence.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Through a complex combination of whitewashing, guilt, and an intentional recasting of history that absolves them of their hatred, our historical translators have painted a sanitized, impressionist portrait of a struggle for Black liberation that was eventually fulfilled by American’s unwavering commitment to justice and equality. Out of whole cloth, they managed to fabricate a fantastic ahistorical myth that somehow became truth. They remember a socially conservative, respectable campaign of racial reconciliation, not a movement of anti-establishment revolutionaries. And for their sake, the doctrine of nonviolent resistance was eventually reduced to simple ‘nonviolence.’ They never speak of the ‘resisting.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“But the Black church is not a place, nor does it exist in the physical realm. It is a school with no address and a meeting space with no location. It is a political machine and a human rights organization.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“In a soul food restaurant, you can order a thigh and a wing. I contend that the thigh is the most underrated and least talked-about piece of chicken, yet it is never separated from the leg in Caucasian cuisine. Legs are trash. If you’re over seven and you still eat legs, you need to grow up.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“they will deny that white supremacy is their ultimate goal. But their votes show it.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“She did not answer proudly, as if she wore her response as a badge of courage; she did it matter-of-factly, like doors and Black women sometimes will.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“CHRISTIAN: A follower of the European version of the teachings of Jesus Christ.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“the criminal enterprise called america is nothing but a self perpetuating white supremacy machine".”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“I once saw a recipe that said “season to taste” and finally understood why white people’s chicken tastes like a crisp fall breeze blowing an American flag at a Toby Keith concert.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Then, in 1662, Virginia’s legislature officially sealed the fate of its negro servants: WHEREAS some doubts have arrisen whether children got by any Englishman upon a negro woman should be slave or ffree, Be it therefore enacted and declared by this present grand assembly, that all children borne in this country shalbe held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother, And that if any christian shall committ ffornication with a negro man or woman, hee or shee soe offending shall pay double the ffines imposed by the former act.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“The indigenous people were dying anyway. The natives had no natural immunity to European illnesses, so entire Caribbean populations died from diseases. Hispaniola’s native Taíno population went from half a million to two hundred in less than fifty years because they were literally allergic to white people. It took forty years for 90 percent of Cuba’s population to disappear. Puerto Rico took thirty years.7”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Du Bois eloquently echoed this sentiment, asking, “Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. How does it feel to be a problem?”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Since the beginning of time”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“In 1503”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“Enchanted by the tales”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“During their journey”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“During his initial voyage”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“On September 4”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“This also meant that Portugal owned all of . . . well”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“How was Portugal going to satisfy Europe’s most vital institution—the Catholic Church—if he didn’t have a pot of gold? If he didn’t figure something out quick”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“When the Bermuda ship arrived”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“With its shoddy leadership in shambles”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“As soon as he received word that some pale people were near the shore”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“The other countries may have had a head start”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“As an adult, she informed me that my early homeschooled education was an experiment due to her belief that “a Black child cannot fully realize their humanity in the presence of whiteness.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“when the first Freedom Ride bus arrived in Anniston”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America

“The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again,” complained the senator Benjamin “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman of South Carolina.”
― Michael Harriot, Black AF History: The Un-Whitewashed Story of America