Black Quotes - Page 24

• You always want to keep your look clean and elegant, but you don't have to do the safe black-dress route. Have some fun! Wear something colorful with a hint of sparkle.

  Mindy Kaling

  Fun, Dresses, Looks

  Source: www.glamour.com

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• You have to separate artistic ability from ethnic origin. Not only am I not black, I am also not a woman, therefore how can I direct women? I am also only 42, therefore how can I direct someone who's 60? So you see where the argument ends up? If you take it to its logical conclusion, I would have to walk around and point a video camera at myself. And who the hell is interested in that?

  Gavin Hood

  Artistic Ability, Cameras, Video

  Source: www.spiegel.de

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• I don't celebrate Valentine's Day. It gets in the way of Black History Month. Cupid didn't free any slaves.

  Damien Lemon

  Valentine, Black History, Way

  "MTV2's Guy Code Fellows Tell Us All About Love, Sex, & Relationships". Interview with Phoebe Robinson, www.glamour.com. February 14, 2013.

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• For me, women's ski wear has always been black and, again, not as feminine or sexy as I think it could look while still having the technology there.

  Stella McCartney

  Sexy, Technology, Thinking

  Source: www.glamour.com

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• I think that we need more economic-based solutions to the problems afflicting the Black community, and I think that that's a way to redefine affirmative action. I grew up with poor white people in West Virginia, and I know there's a culture of poverty. I know that I've seen white people perform exactly the same pathological forms of behavior as Black people do when they're systematically deprived, whether it's getting pregnant, doing drugs, dropping out of school, whatever we're talking about. I think that we should have affirmative action for poor white people too.

  Henry Louis Gates

  School, Thinking, Virginia

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 21, 2013.

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• Very few Black people ever embraced back to Africa movements, and very few actually, a tiny number actually went back to Africa. They said, "We are going to make America live up to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States." They produced one of the world's great cultures; they produced individuals who were just as brilliant and made contributions to the world civilization. In fact, they produced a world-class civilization, the African American civilization, in music, in dance, in oratory, in religion, in writing.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Writing, Civilization, Class

  "Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 21, 2013.

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• Everybody wants to have sex - you don't have to have a baby when you're 16. You don't have to do drugs. I think our Sunday schools should be turned into Black history schools and computer schools on the weekend, just like Hebrew schools for Jewish people, or my Asian friends who send their kids to schools on the weekend to learn Chinese or Korean.

  Henry Louis Gates

  Baby, Sex, School

  "Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 21, 2013.

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• We have to stop making excuses. One of the things that I'm careful to show is the horrendous effects of institutional and structural racism, but in the end, you can't wait for white man or a Black man to come riding in on a white horse to save you. We have to save ourselves, and that's the lesson of "The African Americans."

  Henry Louis Gates

  Horse, Men, White Man

  "Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr". "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 21, 2013.

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• You're not a Black man. You're a human being in God's eyes. So when you sit down to talk to someone and you talk to them in really intelligent terms, you ask difficult questions, there's a militancy that's assigned to you without you asking for it, because you are simply judged by what you look like. If you're a white person asking the same questions, you'd be one of these CNN guys and say how brilliant he is. That doesn't work for you, because this is the world we live in.

  James McBride

  Eye, Intelligent, Men

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• As a journalist, I never critiqued anyone. I never review books. I've never felt qualified as a musician to say whether someone is a good musician or a bad musician. What happens with Black writers and Black artists is that if you're critiqued, for example, by a Black historian who wants to get his name on the cover of "The New York Times," and he says something, like, wacky, well, he'll get his name on the cover of "The New York Times" and he might get tenure, and your career suffers.

  James McBride

  New York, Book, Artist

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I'm one of the few Black writers, or African American writers, who managed to work my way through the system so that it has allowed me to speak in a kind of free way. But most African American writers don't have that. They don't have that opportunity, they don't have that.

  James McBride

  Opportunity, African American, Way

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• My parents pressed upon me that "In this world, you are a black woman," so I was political about my hair and would not straighten it.

  Jami Floyd

  Hair, Parent, Political

  "Your Race, Your Looks". Glamour's Women, Race and Beauty panel, www.glamour.com. February 3, 2008.

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• When I have my Afro and walk down the street, there's no doubt that I'm black. With this [straightened] hair, if I talk about being black on air, viewers write and say, "You're black?!" I feel [straightening your hair] is giving up a sense of your identity. Let's be honest: It's an effort to look Anglo-Saxon.

  Jami Floyd

  Giving Up, Writing, Hair

  "Your Race, Your Looks". Glamour's Women, Race and Beauty panel, www.glamour.com. February 3, 2008.

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• For black women our sense of ourselves is not always consistent with the way other people see us.

  Jami Floyd

  People, Way, Consistent

  "Your Race, Your Looks". Glamour's Women, Race and Beauty panel, www.glamour.com. February 3, 2008.

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• There was a time when black and navy blue suits were pretty much everything you saw. That has completely changed. People are wearing big checks, checks with browns and blues and shades of gray, and the scale is very large, and some of them are very bold with heavy contrasts.

  Patrick Grant

  Blue, People, Navy

  Source: www.askmen.com

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• I decided to become an actor at five. I saw the most gorgeous woman that I had ever seen in my five years of living on television. She had on a long, red dress and her eyelashes looked like butterflies and I said, "Grandmamma, who is that?" She said, "Baby, that's Lola Falana." I said, "That's it right there. I want to be black, fabulous, and on TV."

  Niecy Nash

  Baby, Butterfly, Eyelashes

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• My whole family was - we grew up in New York, but all my relatives and all my father and stepfather's family, they were all from the South. So I like that old Black voice, and I love the sort of old Black man with a corncob pipe, sitting there telling a whopper.

  James McBride

  New York, Father, Men

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The music of the westerner comes from Africa, whether they like it or not. The majority of the instruments of the music, of the pop music, rock and roll, or R&B, hip hop, whatever it is, their roots trace back to Africa. So if you are black, white, yellow, or red, whatever you do, it doesn't matter, because your DNA is back in Africa.

  Angelique Kidjo

  Rocks, Dna, Rock And Roll

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• The Catholic Church had strict racial attitudes and intolerance for anybody who was not Catholic. When I look at a lot of Black ministers and what went on in the Black church, I was more caught up with those who were in Cadillacs and shiny suits than I was with those who were Kingian in their style.

  Harry Belafonte

  Attitude, Catholic, Style

  "Actor-activist Harry Belafonte, Part 2". "The Tavis Smiley Show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. December 1, 2011.

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• Since I have escaped the harshness of the economic bounds of poverty, I have stayed very connected to it spiritually. I reside and live and go and socialize and exist among those who suffer daily from the relationship that they have to poverty, Black men and women who are incarcerated. Actually, all people who are incarcerated, not just Black.

  Harry Belafonte

  Men, People, Suffering

  "Actor-activist Harry Belafonte, Part 1". "The Tavis Smiley Show" with Tavis Smiley, www.pbs.org. November 30, 2011.

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• People want black and white answers, but it's not one thing or another. I think the only way we're going to make good things is to inspire people and make them feel as though what they're watching is real.

  Kim Longinotto

  Real, Black And White, Thinking

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• For Black people, we're one of the only groups of people that for some reason to express love of yourself, in some ways, is misconstrued as a dislike for someone else.

  Wynton Marsalis

  People, Groups, Way

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• When I say "our," I definitely mean all of America. It's not less pertinent for you because it comes from a Black person, just like a great achievement by an Anglo American is less important.

  Wynton Marsalis

  Mean, America, Achievement

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• In a world of increasing grey areas, we are becoming more and more entrenched in black and white positions.

  Paul Bettany

  Black And White, Becoming, World

  Source: collider.com

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• I feel like the world we live in seems to be full of an increasingly grey area, but the culture that we live in seems to be getting really entrenched in black and white positions, and I think it's urgent to talk about that because it's going to kill us all.

  Paul Bettany

  Black And White, Thinking, Culture

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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