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As a matter of fact, compromise is what oppression feeds on.

Harry Belafonte

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Harry Belafonte
Age: 97
Born: 1927
Born: March 1
Actor
Peace Activist
Recording Artist
Singer
Songwriter
Television Actor
Harlem
New York
King of Calypso
Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.
Facts
Matter
Feeds
Oppression
Compromise
Fact

More quotes by Harry Belafonte

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I think [G.W.] Bush has a very selfish, arrogant point of view. I think he is interested in power, I think he believes his truth is the only truth, and that he will do what he wants to do despite the people.
Harry Belafonte
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When I went to Japan I sang in Japanese when I went to Greece I sang in Greek. When I went to Spain, I sang in Spanish. I couldn't speak it very well, but I sang, I was beautiful in singing it. These things just constantly attracted people to the uniqueness of who I was and the way in which I performed.
Harry Belafonte
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The sham engineers of the music industry, who steer the wheels of public opinion, are driving the good features of calypso into the ground. I shudder to think what these greedy men will eventually do to this true art form.
Harry Belafonte
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Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?
Harry Belafonte
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Wherever I found resistance to oppression, whether in Africa, in Latin America, certainly here in America in the South, I joined that resistance. I took part in the labor movement, in social movements, in the church community. I felt that it was the honorable thing to do and still do.
Harry Belafonte
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I delighted in the music of Africa, the earliest of the slave plantation songs, the transformation into Christianity and all that Christianity brought to the lives of the Africans who were forced to come to America.
Harry Belafonte
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I've always been supportive of the right of Israel as a state, and I've always fought against anti-Semitism, even in my own community.
Harry Belafonte
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Since I have escaped the harshness of the economic bounds of poverty, I have stayed very connected to it spiritually. I reside and live and go and socialize and exist among those who suffer daily from the relationship that they have to poverty, Black men and women who are incarcerated. Actually, all people who are incarcerated, not just Black.
Harry Belafonte
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No matter what the greatest tyrant in the world, the greatest terrorist in the world, George W. Bush says, we're here to tell you: Not hundreds, not thousands, but millions of the American people ... support your revolution.
Harry Belafonte
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Our foreign policy has made a wreck of this planet. I'm always in Africa... And when I go to these places I see American policy written on the walls of oppression everywhere.
Harry Belafonte
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Children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS are not only just as deserving of an education as any other children, but they may need that education even more. Being part of a school environment will prepare them for the future, while helping to remove the stigma and discrimination unfortunately associated with AIDS.
Harry Belafonte
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You can cage the singer but not the song.
Harry Belafonte
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Bring it on. Dissent is central to any democracy.
Harry Belafonte
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I became an anti-fascist, and the more I saw what was happening to the peoples of Europe, the Jews, the more I saw the deep cruelty and inhumanity of that system and its philosophy of white supremacy.
Harry Belafonte
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John say's it's James who started first, James tells the story in reverse. I drag my belt from off me waist, you should have heard dem screaming round de place.
Harry Belafonte
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When I was 40 and looking at 60, it seemed like a thousand miles away. But 62 feels like a week and a half away from 80. I must now get on with those things I always talked about doing but put off.
Harry Belafonte
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I like Colin Powell, I like his West Indian background, I like his intellect, I like a lot of things that he does and his style. What is at fault here is a policy that's taking this country to hell.
Harry Belafonte
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More than once my mother would point out: Harry Belafonte is the best-looking man on the planet.
Harry Belafonte
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I am who I am despite what America has put before me. I am who I am despite the obstacles that we have all faced based upon race and based upon social and spiritual humiliation.
Harry Belafonte
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Although we had a lot of villainy here in America, Adolf Hitler was certainly the most visible illustration of what would happen if fascism went unchallenged.
Harry Belafonte