“The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.”

— Barack Obama , book Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Source: Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance

Last update Sept. 30, 2023. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past." by Barack Obama?

Barack Obama 1158

44th President of the United States of America 1961

Related quotes

“The nasty thing about the availability bias is that it insidiously distorts our view of the world by distorting our perception of past events and our environment.”

Leonard Mlodinow book The Drunkard's Walk

Source: The Drunkard's Walk, Chapter 2, The Laws Of Truths And Half - Truths, p. 28

“Our entire linear and accumulative culture collapses if we cannot stockpile the past in plain view.”

Jean Baudrillard (1929–2007) French sociologist and philosopher

The Precession of Simulcra, Ramses, or the Rosy-Colored Resurrection
1980s, Simulacra and Simulation (1981)

“Just as mainstream literature shows us how our contemporaries view the present, and historical fiction shows us how they view the past (not, of course, what the present or the past were actually like), so speculative fiction shows us how they view the future. I happen to believe that my contemporaries' view of the past is not very important; but their view of the present is quite definitely important, and their view of the future is vital.”

Gene Wolfe (1931–2019) American science fiction and fantasy writer

"The Right of Things to Come", presentation for the Science Fiction Research Association (1978), as published in Castle of Days (1992)
Nonfiction

“Of all the things trauma takes away from us, the worst is our willingness, or even our ability, to be vulnerable. There's a reclaiming that has to happen.”

Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor

Source: Rising Strong

“True humility is a Christian grace and one of the fruits of the Spirit, originating in a deep consciousness of sin past and present, and leading us to discover our nothingness in the view of God, our insufficiency for any thing that is good, and prompting us, as we feel our infirmities, to strive after higher and yet higher attainments.”

James McCosh (1811–1894) British philosopher

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 329.

“Sometimes the Worst things that happen in our lives,
put us directly on the Path to the
Best things that will ever happen to us.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“We were not made great as a country by indulging in or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorifying in the things that divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are.”

Jeff Flake (1962) American politician

Speech in the U.S. Senate (2017)

“What was the origin of our slave population? The evil commenced when we were in our Colonial state, but acts were passed by our Colonial Legislature, prohibiting the importation, of more slaves, into the Colony. These were rejected by the Crown. We declared our independence, and the prohibition of a further importation was among the first acts of state sovereignty. Virginia was the first state which instructed her delegates to declare the colonies independent. She braved all dangers. From Quebec to Boston, and from Boston to Savannah, Virginia shed the blood of her sons. No imputation then can be cast upon her in this matter. She did all that was in her power to do, to prevent the extension of slavery, and to mitigate its evils.”

James Monroe (1758–1831) American politician, 5th President of the United States (in office from 1817 to 1825)

Speech in the Virginia State Convention for altering the Constitution https://books.google.com/books?id=R9ctAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA78&dq=%22The+evil+commenced+when+we+were+in+our+Colonial+state%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CD8Q6AEwBmoVChMIwM7FxfHTxwIViPM-Ch3fiQrs#v=onepage&q=%22The%20evil%20commenced%20when%20we%20were%20in%20our%20Colonial%20state%22&f=false (2 November 1829)

“People who had, in the past, suffered from technophobia suffered even more. Others took other positions. Things were not so bad. Things could be worse. Worse things could be imagined. Worse things had been endured and triumphed over, in the past. This was not the worst. The worst was yet to come.”

Donald Barthelme (1931–1989) American writer, editor, and professor

“A Nation of Wheels”, p. 131.
The Teachings of Don. B: Satires, Parodies, Fables, Illustrated Stories, and Plays of Donald Barthelme (1992)

“I have learned that the consequences of our past actions are always interesting; I have learned to view the present with a forward-looking eye.”

John Irving book A Prayer for Owen Meany

Source: A Prayer for Owen Meany

“The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Barack Obama 1158

Related quotes

Related topics