“Well, he’s not a Muslim. He’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the right answer is, Well, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in America? …Is there something wrong with some seven year old Muslim-American kid believing that he could be president?”
—Colin Powell“The less you associate with some people, the more your life will improve. Any time you tolerate mediocrity in others, it increases your mediocrity. An important attribute in successful people is their impatience with negative thinking and negative acting people. As you grow, your associates will change. Some of your friends will not want you to go on. They will want you to stay where they are. Friends that don’t help you climb will want you to crawl. Your friends will stretch your vision or choke your dream. Those that don’t increase you will eventually decrease you.”
—Colin Powell
“My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people, not all of them, but most of them, who are still basing their decision on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. And the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. And that’s despicable.”
—Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff“My party, unfortunately, is the bastion of those people — not all of them, but most of them — who are still basing their positions on race. Let me just be candid: My party is full of racists. The real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander-in-chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin. That's despicable.”
—Retired Army Colonel and former aide to Colin Powell, Lawrence Wilkerson • Diving headfirst, in the most blunt terms possible, into the media dust-up kicked off last Thursday by Romney surrogate John Sununu. Responding to news that former Secretary of State Colin Powell had endorsed President Obama, Sununu suggested that Powell had a “slightly different” reason for doing it than politics – namely, his race. Sununu reversed course on this today, saying “I do not doubt that it was based on anything but his support of the president’s policies,” but not before Wilkerson unleashed this incendiary attack on some of his fellow Republicans. An attack which, frankly, seems destined to generate a lot more heat than it does light. source
Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael) on Colin Powell, 1995 Interview
- Interviewer: Colin Powell has said that, "the military is an excellent way for a Black person to advance."
- Kwame Ture(Stokely Carmichael): I cannot see how anyone can tell me that the best way for one to advance is by being a hired killer. You mean to tell me that the only way we can advance is by being killers and being killers of the enemies of American Imperialism? Because who do we kill? We don't kill our enemies! Do we go to Azania, South Africa, and kill the clerk? Do we kill the Ku Klux Klan? Do we kill racist policemen? No, we go and we kill Arabs who ain't doing nothing against us. We don't even know them; they've never done anything against us. So, it is clear here that Mr. Powell is a liar. Mr. Powell is a traitor to his people, and Mr. Powell is a traitor to humanity, and Mr. Powell accepts that position. That position was made again, and don't you ever forget it, because of Dr. Martin Luther King. If you love King you can never love Powell.
- Interviewer: If you were in a position to advise someone who had attained the position of general in the U.S. Army, and was offered the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what would you have said?
- Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael): Blow it up.
- Interviewer: Hahaha, the Pentagon?!?
- Kwame Ture (Stokely Carmichael): Blow it up.
