As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change. – N. K. Jemisin
I think that it’s hard enough being an adolescent and wanting so much to fit in with your peers, your schoolmates, and to erase any sign of difference, to be part of the group. And being biracial but also being black in a predominately white school marked me as different. – Natasha Trethewey
One thing that’s coming up a lot is: are you as grumpy as you appear from this Black Books thing. – Dylan Moran
I know black kids who don’t even know any other black kids except their cousins. And that’s enough. You wouldn’t look at these kids and say that they are Uncle Toms or self-hating or fleeing or trying to be white, given the culture in which they live, which is very natural to them as kids. – Darryl Pinckney
Black, white, rural, urban, Democrat, Republican, independent. People who come from both ends of the socio-economic spectrum. Male, female. Young and old alike. This is our Kentucky. – Matt Bevin
We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it’s just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are. – Donald Glover
There was a chance for me to write one song for the section where Elvis sat in his black leather outfit and sang the old hits. At eight oclock the next morning I had written Memories. – Mac Davis
I grew up in Houston, and I remember we had separate drinking fountains, and black people sat in the balcony of the theater… We had an African-American housekeeper growing up who was really like my second mother. I thought it was silly – hatred just because of the color of somebody’s skin. – Dennis Quaid
When I was studying… there weren’t any black concert pianists. My choices were intuitive, and I had the technique to do it. People have heard my music and heard the classic in it, so I have become known as a black classical pianist. – Nina Simone
When I was nine, my father said ‘You can take piano lessons or do karate’ – I had a black belt and was competing before I was 19. – Elodie Yung
I have a lot of looks but right now I’m really into grunge. Messy hair, black heels. I get Michelle Pfeiffer with it. – Chloe Grace Moretz
I am half Puerto Rican, a quarter German and a quarter black. That was always a big issue for me – being mixed race – because casting directors tended to be very like, ‘OK, are you Hispanic for this role?’ ‘Or is she going to be African American?’ – Naya Rivera
I earned a black belt when I was in high school. And I did a lot of boxing and full contact karate in college. – Dean Norris
Chanel took women out of corsets and put them into the ‘simple little black dress,’ the perfectly tailored suit, the bell-bottom sailor pants, and jersey tops. – Michael Korda
I come from a real working class background, and I didn’t know anyone sophisticated – except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy! – Patti Smith
Since 1957, black people have experienced double-digit unemployment – in good times and bad times. Look at the population of African Americans in prison. They represent more than half the population of prisoners in the country, 55 percent of those on death row. – Danny Glover
I wouldn’t have thought that a wrong theory should lead us to understand better the ordinary quantum field theories or to have new insights about the quantum states of black holes. – Edward Witten
Rap’s conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride. – David Foster Wallace
I would never know how good I was if I didn’t have Bob Arum. Bob Arum is white, Jewish; He was working for prosecutor’s office. I’m black, an ex-convict, ex-number runner. Who would be most likely to succeed? It would be Bob 100-1. Yet I beat Bob on everything we ever done, with love. – Don King
We’re all very fond of a black box in our living room that works on diminishment of images, that spoons somebody up in a very limited way. It can be a reduction at its worst. – Mary Steenburgen
I’ve heard that I’ve gotten a lighter complexion, as if I’ve bleached my skin. I think that is so stupid and ludicrous. For those who want to bleach their skin, that’s fine. I just didn’t bleach mine. I’m a black woman. I don’t want to be anything but a black woman. – NeNe Leakes
I love boliche, roasted pig, and black beans and rice. When I need a quick fix, I head to Cafe Cortadito on Avenue B and 3rd here in New York City. – Narciso Rodriguez
Large fish such as tuna are shown already cut into fillets and bought by the block. Fillets should be almost transparent. Avoid tuna that looks rainbow-colored or black. – Nobu Matsuhisa
The Republican Party just isn’t held in high repute in the black community. Under Bill Brock we were reaching out to broaden the base of the party. We have to go back to that. – Charles H. Percy
Black people have, like, this thing, and I have it, we all have it, we have this kind of embarrassment. Where we don’t like white people to find out our little insecurities and out little quirks. We don’t really like that that much. It’s kind of, we’re like, ‘Don’t let them know – that ours; that’s for us.’ – Michael Che
I live in rural New Hampshire, and we are, frankly, short on people who are black, gay, Jewish, and Hispanic. In fact, we’re short on people. My town has a population of 301. – P. J. O’Rourke