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Black was bestlooking. ... Ebony was the best wood, the hardest wood; it was black. Virginia ham was the best ham. It was black on the outside. Tuxedos and tail coats were black and they were a man's finest, most expensive clothes. You had to use pepper to make most meats and vegetables fit to eat. The most flavorsome pepper was black. The best caviar was black. The rarest jewels were black: black opals, black pearls.
Ann PetryI'm an African woman, I suppose these thoughts torture me more than they do black American people, because it's like watching my own children trapped in a car that's sinking to the bottom of a lake and being impotent to save them'the black Americans have their own holocaust going on. You see the black man erasing black children from the landscape, you see black women desperately trying to get the black man's attention by wearing blonde hair and fake blue eyes, 500 years after he sold her and their children across the ocean.
Kola BoofI used to joke for years that I was a black man. I adopted the black culture, the black race. I married a black woman, and I had black kids. I always considered myself a 'brother.'
Tommy ChongI love everything black, because black is cool. When something crosses over, people are like, "Oh, this is a crossover." First of all, there is no urban anymore. Pop culture is black. White kids are dressing like black kids. It's all crossed the lines now. The way I understand it is, everything black is cool. When it crosses over to white, that means it's going from cool to uncool. That's what crossover is.
Brett RatnerI wanted to make sure the focus [in The Land] was on human beings themselves and their decisions, but still connected to the urban environment that people associate as being black. I think I was able to make a film without commenting on "black this or black that" and you still feel the presence of it. There's no one character who's saying "we're all black and we're all in this struggle." It's that you just feel it. Some of that is because we get the sense from a lot of independent films that black people struggle all the time.
Steven Caple Jr.I was born in Jackson, Mississippi, in 1969, in a time and place where no one was saying, Look how far weve come, because we hadnt come very far, to say the least. Although Jacksons population was half white and half black, I didnt have a single black friend or a black neighbor or even a black person in my school.
Kathryn StockettI suggest that Black feminist thought consists of specialised knowledge created by African-American women which clarifies a standpoint of and for Black women. In other words, Black feminist thought encompasses theoretical interpretations of Black women's reality by those who live it.
Patricia Hill CollinsBlack History Month is a great celebration for Black people everywhere. I just hope we get to the point as Black people that we celebrate everyday like it is Black History month by living our lives and aspiring to be all we can. Many people lost their lives for us to have the privileges we have so we need to honor them by striving to be the best we can be.
Crystal RobinsonI think it's important for people to understand that dance, movement, choreography is about an experience and entertainment but it's also about perception and a lens. So when we're talking about a Black female's experience through a Black female's lens, that's going to be totally different from a Black female's perspective through a Black male's lens.
Camille A. BrownAs 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. ComerIt's not the black belt that you wear on your waist. It's the black belt in your heart and knowing that you can go out there and you can do it. That's what a true black belt is.
Bonnie CaninoYear after year, author/historian William Loren Katz continues to mine the lodestone of Black culture, and it is simply amazing how often he manages to find new treasures. Here, with the same insight he brought to Black Indians and his other books, the author traces the courageous role of Black women in settling the West. He deftly shows how these pioneering spirits helped stabilize early communities in Texas, Oklahoma, California and elsewhere.
Herb BoydI'm a pop enigma. I live and breathe every element in life. I rock a bespoke suit and I go to Harold's for fried chicken. It's all these things at once, because, as a taste maker, I find the best of everything. There's certain things that black people are the best at and certain things that white people are the best at. Whatever we as black people are the best at, I'ma go get that. Like, on Christmas I don't want any food that tastes white. And when I go to purchase a house, I don't want my credit to look black.
Kanye WestThe white American man makes the white American woman maybe not superfluous but just a little kind of decoration. Not really important to turning around the wheels of the state. Well the black American woman has never been able to feel that way. No black American man at any time in our history in the United States has been able to feel that he didn't need that black woman right against him, shoulder to shoulder-in that cotton field, on the auction block, in the ghetto, wherever.
Maya AngelouBut for poor black people and working-class black people, it is a much more difficult way to go. The over-incarceration of black people is just intolerable. When you look at the disparity in terms of education and access to fair schooling, it is horrible. If this would happen to white people in this country, it would not be tolerated.
Michael Eric DysonAmerica's most dangerous and threatening black man is the one who has been kept sealed up by the Northerner in the black ghettos - the Northern white power structure's system to keep talking democracy while keeping the black man out of sight somewhere, around the corner.
Malcolm XI think the invitation offered the non-black reader is to join us in this expression of our familiarity and via that joining, come to understand that when black people come together to celebrate and rejoice in black critical thinking, we do so not to exclude or to separate, but to participate more fully in world community. However, we must first be able to dialogue with one another, to give one another subject-to-subject recognition that is an act of resistance that is part of the decolonizing, anti-racist process.
Bell HooksYou know, I dont play the race card a lot. Im half-black, half-white, and Im proud of - my skin is brown. The world sees me as a black man, but my mother didnt raise me as a black man. She didnt raise me as a white guy.
Shemar MoorePart of what I am dealing with, with this blackness, is asking the question, "Where are those black people, who are as dark as the description of a young black boy that Solomon Northup gives in 12 Years A Slave?" He describes the young black 14-year-old boy as "blacker than any crow." You have to question if he is using that metaphorically or as a descriptive?
Kerry James MarshallSome black filmmakers will say, "I don't want to be considered a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker." I don't think that. I'm a black woman filmmaker.
Ava DuVernayIncreasingly independent black economic, cultural and political power gave Blacks more freedom to do what came natural to them. Divorced from White influence and culture, they reverted quickly to their genotype - increasingly typical of black societies around the world. Males exhibited exaggerated sexual aggression and promiscuity that led to the dissolution of the Black nuclear family in America. Females reverted to the age-old African model of maternal provisioning of children.
David DukeEverything does come from nature. That's where you get new ideas. Just draw the landscape. I felt doing it with a bit of burnt wood was also good because I was drawing burnt wood with a piece of wood. I wanted to do black and white. After using color, I thought black and white would be good. You can have color in black and white. There is color in them, actually.
David HockneyI'm a black woman every day, and I'm not confused about that. I'm not worried about that. I don't need to have a discussion with you about how I feel as a black woman, because I don't feel disempowered as a black woman.
Shonda RhimesThen she told me why a tiger is gold and black. It has two ways. The gold side leaps with its fierce heart. The black side stands still with cunning, hiding its gold between the trees, seeing and not being seen, waiting patiently for things to come. I did not learn to use my black side until after the bad man left me.
Amy TanAt this time I'd like to say a few words especially to my sisters: SISTERS. BLACK PEOPLE WILL NEVER BE FREE UNLESS BLACK WOMEN PARTICIPATE IN EVERY ASPECT OF OUR STRUGGLE, ON EVERY LEVEL OF OUR STRUGGLE.
Assata ShakurThe Western stereotype of Africa and its black citizens as devoid of reason and, therefore, subhuman was often shared by white master and black ex-slave alike.
Henry Louis GatesWomen think black is the most flattering color, but they're wrong. Pink adds a cosmetic-like radiance and warmth. Black drains the skin of color; pink delights the eye.
Oscar de la RentaThe double jeopardy of being black and female in a racist and sexist society may well make one less afraid of the sanctions against success. A non-subservient black woman is by definition a transgressive- she is the ultimate outsider.
Mamphela RampheleIf you see me, I'm always wearing black and pink. If I don't have it on, I at least have something that's black and pink. For instance, like, a bracelet or something.
Diana DeGarmoAmerica is capable at single moments of receiving the depth and the breadth of the homiletical vision of black America when a black preacher rises to his or her craft at the height of his or her ambition and the desire to tell America the truth.
Michael Eric DysonGravitational waves will bring us exquisitely accurate maps of black holes - maps of their space-time. Those maps will make it crystal clear whether or not what were dealing with are black holes as described by general relativity.
Kip ThorneMr. Pickwick took a seat and the paper, but instead of reading the latter, peeped over the top of it, and took a survey of the man of business, who was an elderly, pimply-faced, vegetable-diet sort of man, in a black coat, dark mixture trousers, and small black gaiters; a kind of being who seemed to be an essential part of the desk at which he was writing, and to have as much thought or sentiment.
Charles DickensBut you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of the negative ones is that it creates enormous identity problems for people who have one black ancestor and all white ancestors for example.
Henry Louis GatesI think the number one thing Black women and all Black people should be paying attention to is our health.
Bell HooksBlack-Scholes works for short-term options, but if it's a long-term option and you think you know something [about the underlying asset], it's insane to use Black-Scholes.
Charlie MungerBill [Clinton] is every bit as black as Barack. He's probably gone with more black women than Barack.
Andrew YoungEverytime I look at a zebra, I can't figure out whether it's black with white stripes or white with black stripes, and that frustrates me.
Jodi PicoultFor instance, if you're a black guy and you got pulled over, and you didn't know that any other black men were being pulled over, you would constantly in the back of your head be thinking, "What did I do?" rather than, "I didn't do anything, these are just the conditions I live under."
Claudia RankineBlack history isnโt a separate history. This is all of our history, this is American history, and we need to understand that. It has such an impact on kids and their values and how they view black people.
Karyn ParsonsI don't think because I hang out with enough black people, I'm gonna turn black. What kind of rationalization is that? I'm just friends with people that I like. I don't care what skin color you are.
Khloe KardashianIt never occurred to me that I was hired because I was black. But it did occur to me that because I was black it would give a different historic element to the film.
Duane JonesAll I'm saying, as a fan, is I'm tired of the same song for 30 years. Can't we change the message a little? You've arrived. You have a black president. Every white guy in a commercial doesn't have to be the idiot and every black guy in a rap song doesn't have to be God's gift to the world.
Bill MaherLittle fussy Otto, in his red-lined black opera cloak with pockets for all his gear, his shiny black shoes, his carefully cut widow's peak and, not least, his ridiculous accent that grew thicker or thinner depending on who he was talking to, did not look like a threat. He looked funny, a joke, a music-hall vampire. It had never previously occurred to Vimes that, just possibly, the joke was on other people.
Terry Pratchett[T]he Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.
John EhrlichmanBlacks were not enslaved because they were black but because they were available. Slavery has existed in the world for thousands of years. Whites enslaved other whites in Europe for centuries before the first black was brought to the Western hemisphere. Asians enslaved Europeans. Asians enslaved other Asians. Africans enslaved other Africans, and indeed even today in North Africa, blacks continue to enslave blacks.
Thomas SowellJust wearing all black comes from Johnny Cash. I'm on the road so much that if I wear all black my clothes never get dirty. You can't tell if I've worn the same shirt twice.
G-EazyThe popular idea of a role model implies that an adult's influence on a child is primarily occupational, and that all a black child needs is to see a black doctor, and then this child will think, "Oh, I can become a doctor too."
Richard RodriguezCold air rises from the ground as the sun goes down. The eye-burning clarity of the light intensifies. The southern rim of the sky glows to a deeper blue, to pale violet, to purple, then thins to grey. Slowly the wind falls, and the still air begins to freeze. The solid eastern ridge is black; it has a bloom on it like the dust on the skin of a grape. The west flares briefly. The long, cold amber of the afterglow casts clear black lunar shadows. There is an animal mystery in the light that sets upon the fields like a frozen muscle that will flex and wake at sunrise.
J. A. Baker