Howard Bryant > Quotes

“The main reason I don’t like it is that the commodification of Memorial Day and events like NFL’s Salute to Service month . . . capitalizes on a new strain of ‘patriotism,’” Doolittle said. “In America today, we display patriotism through the lens of militarism and war and pass it off as support for the troops. It can smell a lot like nationalism. We’ll buy a hat with a camo logo of our favorite team and wear it proudly, a way to show support for our team and our armed forces. There’s more to patriotism than standing for the anthem and wearing red, white, and blue or camo-themed garb, but this new kind of American patriotism gets exploited in the name of capitalism, and days like Memorial Day lose some of their meaning.”
― Howard Bryant, The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

“If only I had loved myself more. How profound is that?”
― Howard Bryant, Hope Nation

“I’m not looking to overthrow the American government,” he said. “The corporate state already has.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“But, the young man said, this tape was being made for a celebration, for history. Was it possible, the technician asked Mr. Aaron, for him to show a little more joy? Perhaps a smile would be good. Henry looked at the man and delivered a line that, in the face of Bonds, would forever make him the people’s champion.”
― Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

“The Costs of War Project at Brown University reports that from 9/11 through 2018, the United States waged war or maintained a military presence in seventy-six nations. That’s 39 percent of the world’s countries.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“Finally, these wars have been largely paid for by borrowing, part of the reason the US went from budget surplus to deficits after 2001,” according to the Costs of War report. “Even if the US stopped spending on war at the end of this fiscal year, interest costs alone on borrowing to pay for the wars will continue to grow apace. . . . Future interest costs for overseas contingency operations spending alone are projected to add more than $1 trillion to the national debt by 2023. By 2056, a conservative estimate is that interest costs will be about $8 trillion unless the US changes the way it pays for the wars.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“The National Center for Women and Policing reported in 2014 that 10 percent of American families experience domestic violence, but for police officers’ families, the number is two to four times higher, one of the highest rates in the nation, though given the issue’s national coverage a first guess would be that the highest rate involves black football players.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“Protest can be organized through social media, but nothing is real that does not end in the streets. If tyrants feel no consequences for their actions in the three-dimensional world, nothing will change. —TIMOTHY SNYDER, On Tyranny”
― Howard Bryant, The Heritage: Black Athletes, a Divided America, and the Politics of Patriotism

“Henry Aaron is the standard of excellence.”
― Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

“Arctic Circle that people would talk about 30 years later,”
― Howard Bryant, Rickey: The Life and Legend of an American Original

“I suggested that instead of his abstinence disqualifying his say on the American situation, perhaps he had gone “full dissident” and recognized the accepted framework of sociopolitical involvement—the ride-alongs with cops, the listening to candidates owned by money, the insistence that deliberate, institutional racism is just a misunderstanding still unsorted—and found them useless. I further argued that if he saw an unredeemed, corrupt system as the problem, there was no reason for him to trust in it and even less reason to expect him to participate in it.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“No president since World War II has contributed more to the militarization of the United States than President Bush,” wrote intelligence expert Melvin A. Goodman in 2013. “Under his leadership from 2001 to 2009, the United States fought two unsuccessful wars, experienced a financial crisis, initiated irreversible tax cuts that burden the US economy and compromised the rule of law at home and abroad. President Bush’s militarization of foreign and national security policy included the creation of an entrenched national security state.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“Because of this drug thing, baseball doesn’t care about the record holder. He’s just standing out there. Baseball cares about the standard of excellence, and that means people will always look to Henry Aaron.”
― Howard Bryant, The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron

“The historical arc of black triumph followed by harsh white response was not only instructive in understanding the big issues, such as Reconstruction or the half century of mobilized white response to Brown v. Board of Education, but it also felt very much a part of a menacing present marked by the throaty and effusive rejection of history itself.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field

“To be black is to be a dissident.”
― Howard Bryant, Full Dissidence: Notes from an Uneven Playing Field