Quotes on Black

I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

It's very hard to be black in this country and hate America. It's really hard to live like that. I would actually argue it's impossible to fully see yourself.

I'm a Black woman and I've always been told that I wasn't Black enough because of the way that I grew up, the experiences that I had.

Black Lives Matter is one iteration of a much larger struggle to fight for black people's freedom.

I've been in movement work since I was 16 years old. Black Lives Matter becomes an important part of the story, but it's not the only part of the story.

#BlackLivesMatter is about black pride and black power and standing up against a world that tries to annihilate us.

Black women's lives have never been shown any value in America.

Do I feel that white directors have to tell only white stories? No. Do I feel that black filmmakers should only tell stories about black people? No. If we say that, then that means Asian people cannot write about anybody but Asians. I don't think a woman should only write about women.

Some of the most moving experiences I've had are just in black churches in the South, during the Civil Rights Movement, where people were getting beaten, killed, really struggling for the most elementary rights.

There are folks who now know black families - like the Johnsons on 'Black-ish' or the folks on 'Modern Family.' They become part of who you are. You share their pains. You understand their fears. They make you laugh, and they change how you see the world.

Just as incarceration has come to define the lives of low-income black men, eviction is defining the lives of low-income black women.

I hate studios. A studio is a black hole. I never use a studio to work. It's very artificial to go to a studio to get new ideas. You have to get new ideas from life, not from the studio. Then you go to the studio to realize the idea.

I grew up in Philadelphia in a time where we took it for granted that we were supposed to be young and gifted and black. It was a culture of excellence - and all my friends were more talented than I was.

It is wrong if nearly every time we hear a black or Asian actor portraying their lives they are actually speaking the words of someone who has never experienced their reality. And to effectively silence disabled people from telling their own truth on film or TV is close to criminal and will not help wider society understand their reality.

Any Black person who thinks there is a loophole to avoid paying the respectability tax is delusional. Recognizing that doesn't make you any less Black. It makes you realistic.

There wasn't a game in the Eighties when you didn't get racial abuse as a black player.

How many black people are there in the higher echelons of any industry? We can talk about journalism, we can talk about politics. So why should football be any different?

There's a long history and a pattern of Black athletes - and Black people, period - being told to shut up and accept whatever it is they're given.

What people forget is that the most radical thing about Obama is that he was the first black man in history to imagine that he could become president, who was able to make other Americans believe it as well. Other than that, he is a centrist, just like I try to be. He's been bridging divisions his whole life.

One principle I've been fighting for that doesn't endear me to a lot of people is that black people can be just as complicated and screwed up as white people. Our motives can be just as base and violent. Suffering does not necessarily ennoble you.

I don't think there is any such thing as a black writer or a white writer. Ultimately, there is someone whom one reads.