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I don't want the Obama era to be more about symbolism than substance when it comes to black people. I love him, but I love black people even more.

Tavis Smiley

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Tavis Smiley
Age: 60
Born: 1964
Born: September 13
Businessperson
Journalist
Radio Personality
Talk Show Host
Television Presenter
Television Producer
Gulfport
Mississippi
Eras
Substance
Obama
Black
Comes
Even
Love
People
Symbolism

More quotes by Tavis Smiley

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There are really only two types of people. Either you're running scared or you're running free. I choose to run free, and you can, too, no matter what your circumstances in life.
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That is still the case in this country for too many students, the soft bigotry of low expectations. If you don't expect them to learn, if you don't expect them to succeed - then it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
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I love the fight. I don't - it's not a negative, it's a positive, and I love the challenge. There's that little part of me that I love proving someone wrong in that way when they have an image of me or something, or they think they have me figured out or they think I'm a certain way.
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Fear, fear, breeds hopelessness. When you're afraid, you don't know what to believe in, you don't know what to hold on to. You're struggling to find something to believe in.
Tavis Smiley
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I love my cross-sectioned, cross-cultural audience. Some of them are doing better than the average guy, but my audience has always been people who are struggling to stay in the middle class.
Tavis Smiley
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I wanted to be a theater actress, and initially, I wanted to work in musical theater
Tavis Smiley
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Regardless of your race, religion or political affiliation, never hesitate to question those in authority.
Tavis Smiley
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Poverty and wealth inequality are a form of instability into the future.
Tavis Smiley
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To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening. In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.
Tavis Smiley
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I don't think I'd live anything over, even though I've made a lot of mistakes. I have learned how to see failure as a friend. So, I'm not one to live a life of regrets. I try to learn from my mistakes, but I'll take my life the way it is.
Tavis Smiley
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Live just because or live your life for a cause
Tavis Smiley
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The City of Angels is a microcosm of the world, and so living in L.A. makes me feel like a citizen of the world.
Tavis Smiley
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Troubled times do call for troubled songs, songs that unsettle our souls and our spirits unapologetically.
Tavis Smiley
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Music is the soundtrack of our lives, it's essential for our lives.
Tavis Smiley
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When you work for something, you appreciate it more. So what are y'all going to do with all the opportunities you inherited that you didn't have to work for?
Tavis Smiley
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How do you grow up in the shadow of a guy - I want to talk about the movie in a second - but how do you grow up in the shadow of a guy who really is a legend in his own time?
Tavis Smiley
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Sometimes rejection in life is really redirection.
Tavis Smiley
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I'm always fascinated by people from the Midwest, because it is so different than Hollywood, who discover at some point that they want to be in Hollywood.
Tavis Smiley
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[John Carlos] has spent much of his life since that time as a dedicated human rights advocate and public speaker, and he is out now with a wonderful new text a memoir, in fact.
Tavis Smiley
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Be careful about gossiping because loose lips really do sink ships. Now that I'm in the broadcast business, and people talk about me, I know what it feels like to be the victim of gossip.
Tavis Smiley