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I, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.
James FreyIf a dog is biting a black man, the black man should kill the dog, whether the dog is a police dog or a hound dog or any kind of dog. If a dog is fixed on a black man when that black man is doing nothing but trying to take advantage of what the government says is supposed to be his, then that black man should kill that dog or any two-legged dog who sets the dog on him.
Malcolm XArguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.
Michelle AlexanderThat was the day my whole world went black. Air looked black. Sun looked black. I laid up in bed and stared at the black walls of my houseโฆ.Took three months before I even looked out the window, see the world still there. I was surprised to see the world didnโt stop.
Kathryn StockettI was adopted my black Americans, I feel that I'm a 'Hybrid'. When I'm around Africans'I suddenly feel very black American. And when I'm around black Americans'I feel very North African. North Africa and black America are both the creators of Kola Boof.
Kola BoofThe search for the new black is one of the most elusive quests known to man. It's rumored that Christopher Columbus once searched for the new black and simply gave up. Yet every season we are convinced that some magical chromatic fabric will usurp black as the king of fashion, only to realize later that black still reigns supreme.
Ashton KutcherIf violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad. If it is wrong to be violent defending black women and black children and black babies and black men, then it is wrong for America to draft us and make us violent abroad in defense of her. And if it is right for America to draft us, and teach us how to be violent in defense of her, then it is right for you and me to do whatever is necessary to defend our own people right here in this country.
Malcolm XThere's an inherent idea that if a Black executive producer and a Black director are going to do a movie based on a Black writer's book that everybody is going to be Black.
GabrielleAs blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.
James P. ComerWhen the charge first came up, I hated black women. Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. It's mostly black female guards. They treat me with human respect.
Tupac ShakurThere's one more thing I want to say. It's a touchy subject. Black beauty. Black sensuality. We live in a culture where the beauty of black people isn't always as celebrated as other types. I'd like to help change that if I can!
Jody WatleyThe Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.
Henry Louis GatesWe cannot assume that people by virtue of the fact that they are black are going to associate themselves with progressive political struggles. We need to divest ourselves the kinds of strategies that assume that black unity black political unity is possible.
Angela DavisI've done movies for certain reasons; I did 'Anaconda' because the black man lives. Simple. The black man isn't dead in the first three pages, like Jurassic Park. It's like, 'The black man kills the snake with a Latino girl? Damn! I got to do this.'
Ice CubeNowadays, people shoot digitally and it's all in color, but you press a button and it all goes to black and white. But it's not lit for black and white. So, it's a tricky thing. If you're going do black and white, you better remember to separate things with light, because color ain't gonna be there.
David LynchThere were only ever two black kids at my school. I never considered myself to be 'a black kid'. I was who I was. Which isn't to say things haven't happened to me that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't black.
Daley ThompsonFor my prom, I was so fancy, I got t a suit tailored. I wanted a three-piece suit. I thought it would be cool to wear all black - black shirt, black tie, I figured it would be the coolest thing I've ever done. That was my first suit. I put the suit on two years later and it was so big on me and absurd and didn't fit. I still have it. I won't throw it out. It's too fun. It reminds me where I come from. Actually, I have an evolution of suits in my closet. It starts with that one and goes up to the suits that I get to have now.
Gabriel MachtOf course I'm a black writer... I'm not just a black writer, but categories like black writer, woman writer and Latin American writer aren't marginal anymore. We have to acknowledge that the thing we call "literature" is more pluralistic now, just as society ought to be. The melting pot never worked. We ought to be able to accept on equal terms everybody from the Hasidim to Walter Lippmann, from the Rastafarians to Ralph Bunche.
Toni MorrisonBut when I fell in love with black, it contained all color. It wasnโt a negation of color. It was an acceptance. Because black encompasses all colors. Black is the most aristocratic color of all.... You can be quiet and it contains the whole thing.
Louise Berliawsky NevelsonClaire was struggling through last summerโs diary volume when Myrnin popped in through the portal, wearing a big floppy black hat and a kind of crazy/stylish pimp coat that covered him from neck to ankles, black leather gloves, and a black and silver walking stick with a dragonโs head on it. And, on his lapel was a button that said, If you can read this, thank a teacher.
Rachel CaineMy concern was first, for the black people of Mississippi, then I became concerned for black people nationwide, now my concern is for black people all over the world. I began to realize that it's not as much about race as we think it is. It's about the rich vs. the poor. I feel as if the different races are pitted against one another so we won't see the bigger (financial disparity) problem.
David BannerThe first rule about a black womanโs hair is you donโt talk about a black womanโs hair. And the second rule is you donโt ever touch a black womanโs hair without getting written permission first.
Ben AaronovitchYou can wear black in any moment of the day, no matter your age. You can wear black with almost any occasion. A black dress is essential for every woman.
Christian DiorEvery now and then you get a nice Jewish kid who likes black people and they would come in, and it would be a stream of them, and have black friends and really feel the black struggle on the acting tip and it's a reason why all of us are not dying in the movie.
Mike EppsIt means black kitten," I said with my pulse almost even again. Ares studied me. "And you're ok with them calling you their black kitten?" "They're wererats, Ares," I said. He frowned at me. "They're not calling me their little black rat. Think it through.
Laurell K. HamiltonIt was darker than a pitch-black panther, covered in tar, eating black licorice at the very bottom of the deepest part of the Black Sea.
Daniel HandlerAs 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 McBrideThe most ironic outcome of the black Civil Rights movement has been the creation of a new black middle class which is increasingly separate from the black underclass.
Henry Louis GatesBlack people's music is in a class by itself and always has been. There's nothing like it. The reason for that is because it was not tampered with by white people. It was not on the media. It was not anywhere except where black people were. And it is one of the art forms in which black people decided what is good in it. Nobody told them. What surfaced and what floated to the top, were the giants and the best.
Toni MorrisonThere are black men who are madly in love with white women. God bless them, if that's what works for them. I just hope that we can strike a balance that portrays black folks and the black family in a light that's not extreme. Those are the types of characters that I find myself attracted to.
Nia LongI have a perhaps naive point of view informed by my own kind of snowflake-in-the-unique-sense rather than the political sense, personal story. I mean I feel like my experiences are so hard to map onto any kind of generalized identity. For example, I'm a black person, but I come from a very particular black experience which is not unlike the experience of the Barack Obama. I have an African mother and a white father and I feel like I have a different experience of being a black person as a result of that identity than someone who is from the descendants of slaves.
Lydia PolgreenThe floor of ice cream parlor bothered me. It was black-and-white checkboard tile, bigger than supermarket checkboard. If I looked only at a white square, I would be all right, but it was hard to ignore the black squares that surrounded the white ones. The contrast got under my skin. The floor meant yes, no, this, that, up, down, day, night -all the indecisions and opposites that were bad enough in life without having them spelled out for you on the floor.
Susanna KaysenHe pointed toward the silhouettes on the side of the [bathrooms] instead--black cutout man, black cutout woman. The man had his legs apart, the woman had hers together. Pretty much the story of the human race in sign language.
Stephen KingHere you have 22 million Afro-Americans, black people today, catching more hell than Patrick Henry ever saw. And I'm here to tell you, in case you don't know it, that you got a new - you got a new generation of black people in this country, who don't care anything whatsoever about odds. They don't want to hear you old Uncle Tom handkerchief heads talking about the odds.
Malcolm XThe election, and even the re-election, of a black man as president, in a country that is 87 percent non-black - a first in human history - has had no impact on what are called 'racial tensions.'
Dennis PragerIt seems that our politicians see the world in black and white, so why not our artists? Did Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' have to be in black and white? No. But is it fantastic that it was? To see New York like that? Yes!
Alexander PayneIf you are going to think black, think positive about it. Don't think down on it, or think it is something in your way. And this way, when you really do want to stretch out and express how beautiful black is, everybody will hear you.
Leontyne PriceIt's almost like a lot of black people in America, a lot of young black men, are born with this cloud over their heads. It's their penitentiary cloud, this philosophy we all have, that it's harder for us.
Erykah BaduWhen I was a child, I was one of the kids who wore black all the time, and when the kids asked me why I wore black, I said things like, 'I'm mourning the death of modern society.' I mean, I was a riot.
Maggie StiefvaterDoesn't anyone wonder why the NAACP does not have events celebrating the first black woman secretary of state?.. Why does an organization whose mission is to advance the lot of blacks not celebrate Clarence Thomas, our black Supreme Court justice?
Star ParkerWe have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard work and sacrifices. Capitalism was built on the exploitation of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor, both black and white, both here and abroad.
Martin Luther King, Jr.This is football from the 19th century. It's very difficult to play a football match when only one team wants to play. A football match is about two teams playing. I told Big Sam, they need points. To come here the way they did, is that acceptable? Maybe it is, they need points. The only thing I could bring more was Black & Decker - a Black & Decker to destroy the West Ham wall.
Jose MourinhoI think that any black man who teaches black people to turn the other cheek and suffer peacefully after they've been turning the cheek and suffering peacefully for 400 years in a land of bondage, under the most cruel, inhuman and wicked slavemaster that any people have ever been under, he is doing those people an injustice, and he's a traitor to his own people.
Malcolm XIn it he proves that all things are true and states how the truths of all contradictions may be reconciled physically, such as for example that white is black and black is white; that one can be and not be at the same time; that there can be hills without valleys; that nothingness is something and that everything, which is, is not. But take note that he proves all these unheard-of paradoxes without any fallacious or sophistical reasoning.
Cyrano de BergeracI went to the graduation the other night of my first great grandchild - he's 21 or 22; and right at the graduation I looked, and 92 percent of those who graduated at the University of Illinois were females. Where can a Black female, who are now the lawyers, the engineers; they are the ones graduating with top degrees; where will they find in a Black male a counterpart that is equal to them? We are filling the jails, we are filling the prisons.
Louis Farrakhan