Quotes on Black

Mattia was right: the days had slipped over her skin like a solvent, one after the other, each removing a very thin layer of pigment from her tattoo, and from both of their memories. The outlines, like the circumstances, were still there, black and well delineated, but the colors had merged together until they faded into a dull, uniform tonality, a neutral absence of meaning.

The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

My father was so very afraid. I felt it in the sting of his black leather belt, which he applied with more anxiety than anger, my father who beat me as if someone might steal me away, because that was exactly what was happening all around us.

The way they control a population is by pointing at somebody else - whether they're gay, Mexican, Jewish, black - and saying, 'They are different than you. They're the reason you're in the shape you're in. You're not responsible.' And when they exonerate you through vilifying and demonizing someone else, they control you.

There's an anecdote that's really been sticking with me: To be a Black man in America, you are born into the horror genre. You are not safe. Period. Full stop.

Black men and women who refuse to live under oppression are dangerous to white society because they become symbols of hope to their brothers and sisters, inspiring them to follow their example.

Black Girl Magic means that I have the power to overcome anything. Especially when we're in a world where you're told that you can't do something or you're less than, I'm reminded that my ancestors have overcome so much. There's still so much work to be done, and I have the power to overcome it.

God does not know whether a skin is black or white, He sees only souls.

Being a woman, we talk about equal pay all the time. We're not talking about if you're black or if you are Latina. I would like to get back to that and improving the relationship between the police community and the community of color. I don't know exactly all the right things to say, but I want to engage in that conversation.

Hate is too great a burden to bear.

Black storytelling can be about anything, absolutely anything, and within that it can be as enriching, as complex, beautiful, ugly as anything else. We are not seeing enough of those complexities on our stages.

In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking. Now, Heaven knows, anything goes. The world has gone mad today, and good's bad today, and black's white today, and day's night today.

One of the reasons I paint black people is because I am a black person.

Blackness has always been stigmatised, even amongst black people who flee from the density of that blackness. Some black people recoil from black people who are that dark because it has always been stigmatised.

War is mankind's most tragic and stupid folly; to seek or advise its deliberate provocation is a black crime against all men.

People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.

One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghetto.

Queer black characters have been the sidekick for long enough. It's time for us to finally take the lead.

It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.

I'd never been around or seen a black showrunner, and in some ways you wish that it wasn't a big deal.

There's a time when it was an event for a black person to be on television. Where black households would gather around, 'Oh, you know, Sammy Davis is going to be on 'All in the Family' tonight! Let's go check it out!' It was a big, big thing.