35 Million Ways to Be Black

Look at these black college students today. They’re worried about somebody black jumping in their face and saying, “You’re not black enough. You’re a Harvard kid, a turncoat, a traitor, you speak standard English, you get straight A’s—those are all white things.” And they had to put up with that all their lives, probably. I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, “You can like Mozart and ice hockey . . .”—and then I used to say “golf,” but Tiger took over golf!—“and Picasso and still be as black as the ace of spades. You know, there are 35 million black people in this country and there are 35 million ways to be black.” When I say that, I get a standing ovation.

--Henry Louis Gates, Jr.