Nate Parker Quotes

When you're 19, getting a girl to say yes, or being a dog, or being a player, cheating. Consent is all about - for me, back then - if you can get a girl to say yes, you win.

Race I've been studying since I knew there was a problem with race and that I was Black and something was wrong. Gender, is very new to me. All I can say is this is something that I'm going to take hold of and pray about it.

I got work to do. I got a lot of work to do within myself.

I don't want to be a leader that is one-dimensional or two-dimensional because he's not willing to be open.

This is the psychosis of being a human being - the things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis that make us who we are and that sometimes we have to get on the couch and talk out.

My mother always tells me, "Fear isn't from God," and I believe that. But sometimes, I wonder whether I'll be able step into the shoes that God has prepared for me.

I never examined my role in male culture, in hyper masculinity. I never examined it, nobody ever called me on it.

I'm 36-years-old and I'm learning about definitions that I should have known when I started having sex.

I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to direct a film. If you have that courage and that vision together, and you pick the cast that you believe will achieve your vision, you win.

Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate.

I need to take toward a lot of things that will refine me and make me better suited for leading anyone out of any place of injustice to a place of justice.

Any movement that has been successful in this country for Black liberation has included old and young, men and women, and people not of color that understand their superiority complex, that understand White supremacy, and that internalize that, sort that out, and heal from that in order that they might help, because there are some people of color that are not on our side.

I have engaged in hyper-male culture, and I'm learning about it, and I'm learning how I can change and help young boys and young men change.

If a director, I believe, has vision and knows so clearly what they want, then you can have a film that can perform. Whereas you can have done 50 movies, but if you're unsure this time, your movie may not turn out.

I'm trying to transform behaviors and ideas that have never been challenged in certain ways in my life. I'm not the kid that I was at 19.

Some people think racism is if you say the n-word, so homophobia is if you call someone...

For the women out there that I've hurt with my male privilege, I'm sorry.

You can be addicted to White Supremacy and all of the benefits, you can be addicted to male privilege and all of the benefits that comes from it. It's like someone pointing at you and you have a stain on your shirt and you don't even know it.

I'm a work in progress. I'm trying to be better.

I can't remember ever having a conversation about the definition of consent when I was a kid. I knew that no meant no, but that's it.

If a person was accused of being a racist when he was young - he said some racially insensitive thing or someone had him on tape calling someone the n-word or whatever - and then you fast forward and he feels, Oh, back then I didn't say this or that. He's not thinking about the person that he hurt when he said what he said, or however it came out, or the effects that it could have had. He's not thinking about it. He's thinking about his own self and how he feels.

I recognize as a man there's a lot of things that I don't have to think about. But I'm thinking about them now.

I want young people to ask me if I'm serious. Our young people have been lied to and misled for so long. When I stand on this soapbox, I want young people to ask me that because once they know I'm serious, they'll be willing to ride with me.

We have such a knee-jerk reaction to our young people, not recognizing our young people carry the torch. We condemn them for their hats worn a certain way or their hoodie worn a certain way, or their pants sagging a certain way, but the reality is, we need to meet them where they stand. We need to arm them with what they need to fight, and then we need to get the hell out the way and let them lead. That is something that is not happening in our communities.

I'm not perfect, I'm a flawed man, but I'm willing to try to get better, I'm willing to listen.

Every day I'm reassessing what I've been taught against what I see, and the man I need to be if I'm going to call myself a leader of anybody.

When you're 19, a threesome is normal. It's fun.

At 19, if a woman said no, no meant no. If she didn't say anything and she was open, and she was down, it was like how far can I go? If I touch her breast and she's down for me to touch her breast, cool. If I touch her lower, and she's down and she's not stopping me, cool. I'm going to kiss her or whatever. It was simply if a woman said no or pushed you away that was non-consent.

I believe in hiring people to do their jobs.I want to hire an editor.They say you make a movie three times: when you write it, when you direct it, and when you edit it. So I have three shots to get it right!

If I don't know how to swim and two weeks later I know how to swim, I know how to swim.

The good thing about a film, or at least the films I've been a part of, is, no matter what happens in the end, you do the premiere and everyone's excited. You don't remember the rough times.

If I can use my platform to affect change in gender, as I can in race, then I think I can have an impact.

And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.

I think there is having a behavior that is disrespectful to women that goes unchecked, where your manhood is defined by sexual conquests, where you trade stories with your friends and no one checks anyone. At 19, that was normal.

In all actuality, we got to do better about preparing our men for their interactions with women.

When an artist becomes complacent, he dies.

All I can do is seek the information that'll make me stronger, that'll help me overcome my toxic masculinity, my male privilege, because that's something you never think about.

I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for "then" but a message for "now."

Far too often scripts are being written with race in mind, but the subject matter doesn't lend itself to any conversation on race. I applaud Jesse [Zwick] for having the courage to say, this [About Alex] just a story about friends, and they could be anyone. There's no specific color that forces a relationship to be discussed in any other manner.

I think chemistry and great acting go hand-in-hand.

How many films are there about friendships between teenagers? And how many projects are there dealing with friendships among adults? True friendships - really dealing with the intimacy behind what happened then, and how long you've known each other, and the wounds that haven't healed. That's what [About Alex] film is about.

I think it's like the '60s - we're going to see another revolution in film where these new filmmakers stand up and take ownership of what film is and mould it into what they want.

When I was young, to have a big nose, big lips or dark skin was the worst. You were the wretched.

The crazy thing is a lot of people - a lot of men, if I'm just speaking for myself - don't really start thinking about the effect of hyper-masculinity and false definitions of what it means to be a man until you get married or until you have kids. Because then all of sudden you have something to protect.

I was working in computers when this stranger approached me out of the blue, saying I should become an actor. I took it as a gift from God, because I had been praying for clarity about what He wanted me to do, since I wasn't happy in computers.

When you're in a relationship with someone you have to be in control of that relationship and you have to be as open as you can about everything, straight up, out the gate.

Being a woman in 2016 if very different, imagine being a woman 20 years ago, and when we talk about consent, maybe 20 years from now we'll know things about consent and examine it from a different perspective than we are now.

Self-esteem and identity are very fragile things. I think a lot of times, those are the motivations for why people do take their own lives - not being seen, not being recognized, not being loved, not feeling supported, not feeling understood.