I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
We have to put people on pedestals; otherwise, there's no one to knock off pedestals.
Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate. So, with reckless abandon, we strive to be like the majority.
If you're put on a pedestal, you're supposed to behave yourself like a pedestal type of person. Pedestals actually have a limited circumference. Not much room to move around.
Generally speaking, we as black people have been celebrated more for when we are subservient when we are not being leaders or kings or in the center of our own narrative driving it forward.
Sometimes black people really want to hold onto our oppression - 'This is ours! This belongs to us.' You can't just talk about equality for somebody else. Let's pass it on. Let's pass it on to somebody else. At the end of the day, it is all about inequality.
On the road to equality there is no better place for blacks to detour around American values than in forgoing its example in the treatment of its women and the organization of its family.
We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are.
There is a tendency to want to treat blacks as a monolithic socioeconomic group.
I think... I'm perceived as an everyperson. There is no pedestal. I'm no different from anybody else.
If you put people up on pedestals, there's only one way for them to go, and that is down.