Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza "Condi" Riceis an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush. Rice was the first female African-American Secretary of State, as well as the second African American secretary of state, and the second female secretary of state. Rice was President Bush's National Security Advisor during his first term, making her the first woman to serve in that...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth14 November 1954
CityBirmingham, MI
CountryUnited States of America
I think it's very humble to believe that there is no man, woman or child who should live in tyranny. That people who say, well, maybe Arabs just aren't ready for democracy or maybe Africans just are going to have corrupt governments, that seems to me arrogant.
History's long arc is different than the today's headlines.
There are some places that have had real quarrels with the United States' policies, but I think the country is very well-respected worldwide.
America is a remarkable place in that social attitudes change almost imperceptibly, and then you wake up the next day and they've changed. But they've been changing all the time.
The Iranian people have a proud past. They merit a great future.
I grew up in a very loving middle class family. My parents were educators. I'm not even the first PhD in my family. They tried to shield me, just as other parents in my neighborhood tried to shield their children. But you knew there was a reason that you couldn't go to that theme park or to a movie theater or to a hamburger stand. They couldn't shield you completely. What they did though was they never let it be an excuse for not achieving, and they always said racism is somebody else's problem, not yours. They tried in that way not to make us bitter about Birmingham.
I certainly think that the world views the United States as a place to be respected. All over the world our values are respected; who we are, a place that you can come and come from modest circumstances to great things, that's respected.
Your friends and your family, if you're close to them, they won't let you get too far from who you were or from who you are. And so I love staying close to people who've always known me. That's probably the best leavening that you could possibly have.
You know, life is not one in which you just get to choose the things every day that come easily to you. And it's also true - and this is the self-esteem problem - you learn that there are people who are better at things than you are.
I learned a lot about my parents, who were both teachers. I had known that my parents were very strongly in favor of education. I had known that they had an impact on a lot of people, but people came out of the woodwork who have said, "You know, without your father, I would never have gone to college," very successful people. And so I learned how widespread their educational evangelism really was.
Well, I didn't feel that I could do justice to this story of my parents and their generation, and all that they did to make it possible for me to be who I am, if I sort of just put it at the beginning of a book about my last eight years in foreign policy.
What we will not wait for is that particular nexus of terrorism, weapons of mass destruction that is extremism, and the technology to come together in a way that is harmful to the United States.
I've been an athlete all my life. I was a competitive figure skater, and then when I realized skating was not an adult sport I took up tennis and played that quite seriously from the time I was about 18.
I'm a great believer in the fact that as you get to know someone, it matters not what religious background they have, or what their nationality is, or where they came from. And I think that's how Americans really do relate to each other on a personal level.