Pittsburgh is a very hard city, especially if you’re black.
When I first ran for governor… I had to stand up for segregation or be defeated, but I never insulted black people by calling them inferior.
The story of the British empire helps to explain the roots of most British people: white, black, and Asian.
I have seven brothers and sisters, and I’m the only one who looks white because my mother has had children by all black men, and then my father has children with other women as well.
The idea of an e-book has been around since the late 1970s, when researchers at Xerox PARC got on the case. Their prototype used millions of little magnetic particles, black on one side and white on the other, loosely embedded in the surface of a soft sheet of rubber.
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?’
I’m hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I’d be pulling for him.
There are infinite shades of grey. Writing often appears so black and white.
And the whole thing is that you’re treated like a step-child. Here it was down here, everything in the black, because they were stealing, basically. Stealing from us old country boys down here.
Black people are the only ones told to love our oppressors. I hate that. We’ve been loving our oppressors for a long time, and nothing has changed – that love has to be reciprocated.
It is a struggle; for though the black man fights passively, he nevertheless fights; and his passive resistance is more effective at present than active resistance could possibly be. He bears the fury of the storm as does the willow tree.
I think sports has done a disservice for a lot of black kids thinking they can only be successful through athletics and entertainment. I want them to know they can be doctors, lawyers, teachers, fireman, police officers, etc.
There is nothing of any consequence in education, in the economy, in city planning, in social policy that does not concern black people.
Blue, green, grey, white, or black; smooth, ruffled, or mountainous; that ocean is not silent.
The movement for black lives isn’t just about black people. Black liberation has never just been about black people. It’s been about a fight for our humanity, for our dignity.
The plunder of black communities is not a bump along the road, but it is, in fact, the road itself that you can’t have in America without enslavement, without Jim Crow, terrorism, everything that came after that.
The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people – to black people.
The fishnets on Black Canary never bothered me: they fit her character. It’s the same for me with the bikini… most people don’t wear a lot of clothes in these stories, and it’s a big part of what makes her instantly recognizable. Do I want her in a raincoat? Not really.
‘Gods of Wheat Street’ has been described as an Aboriginal ‘Neighbours’ or ‘Home and Away.’ But on set, we were calling it ‘Black to the Rafters.’
Colour is what gives jewels their worth. They light up and enhance the face. Nothing is more elegant than a black skirt and sweater worn with a sparkling multi-stoned necklace.
If I could find anything blacker than black, I’d use it.
There were days I could barely struggle into a size 46 or 48, months of larges and XXLs, and endless rounds of leggings with the elastic at the waist stretched to its limit and beyond – topped with the fashion equivalent of a tea cozy. And always black, because I was in mourning for my slimmer self.
A group of white South Africans recently killed a black lawyer because he was black. That was wrong. They should have killed him because he was a lawyer.
The problem is that television executives have got it into their heads that if one presenter on a show is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed heterosexual boy, the other must be a black Muslim lesbian.
Black Lives Matter is the ultimate divisive movement. They aren’t shy about what they don’t like, which is western civilization, capitalism, and the rule of law. They really dislike the police, and certainly get the credit for the war between black men and police.
It’s so clear that you have to cherish everyone. I think that’s what I get from these older black women, that every soul is to be cherished, that every flower Is to bloom.
Black America surely faces an existential crisis, but not the one imagined in the condescending news media – of somehow getting non-black America to be more just and generous. The truth is, we’ve already been through that, and there is nothing left to do. We’re out of ‘affirmative actions’ of all kinds.
One dress I love – for me, it’s a little edgy – it’s sleeveless. It’s black and it’s leather. I’ve worn it on TV.
I think sometimes what people miss about black people is that we’re complicated, that we are indeed messy, that we do our best with what we’ve been given. We come into the world exactly like you. It’s just that there are circumstances in the culture that are dictated and put on our lives that we have to fight against.
We don’t live in a world that’s black and white.
I probably saved more black lives as mayor of New York City than any mayor in the history of this city. And I did it by having to use police officers in black areas where there was an astounding amount of crime. If that crime was in white areas, police officers would be in white areas.
I think it’s because it was an emotional story, and emotions come through much stronger in black and white. Colour is distracting in a way, it pleases the eye but it doesn’t necessarily reach the heart.
No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That’s a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.
The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people.
We have to consciously study how to be tender with each other until it becomes a habit because what was native has been stolen from us, the love of Black women for each other.
I wanted to explore black culture, and I wanted that culture to be a revelation.
It comes down to this: black people were stripped of our identities when we were brought here, and it’s been a quest since then to define who we are.
Do not consider that to be wealth which is hoarded away, for how is it better than sand gathered from the nearest heap? Nor that which comes in from men who groan at their taxes: for the gold that is wrung from tears is of base alloy and black.
When I did ‘Good Guys Wear Black,’ I had a lot of dialogue in that movie.
The brain is the black box: the final frontier.
I was born on an island with 96 percent of the people black. But all the power and the economy was in the hands of white people who only formed four per cent.
Motown was about music for all people – white and black, blue and green, cops and the robbers. I was reluctant to have our music alienate anyone.
Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.
People want to call me racist for doing the Bon Qui Qui character, and I’m like, ‘Look, Bon Qui Qui is a representation of a hood chick. That’s it.’ There are lots of hood chicks out there: some are black, some are Mexican, some are Salvadorian, and some are white.
Obviously black matches with everything.
I feel the feminist movement has excluded black women. You cannot talk about being black and a woman within traditional feminist dialogue.
After Jackie Robinson the most important black in baseball history is Reggie Jackson, I really mean that.
‘Moonlight’ is a story that hasn’t been told. Whether placed as queer black cinema or urban male cinema, the lack of coming-of-age films featuring people like Chiron and set in places like inner-city Miami is pronounced and unfortunate.
Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you’re a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I’ve visited Africa, and I’ve got news for everyone: I’m not an African.
I’m doing a film called ‘Black Mass’ where I play James Bulger. The reason to play him is obvious to me. He’s a fascinating character. It’s not like anything I’ve done before on that level. I’m very excited to slide into that skin for a little bit.
Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don’t know that I’m most people’s definition of what a black person is. I’m mixed, yes, but in the world I’m defined as black before I’m defined white. I’ve never been called white.
I had a vision – and I saw white spirits and black spirits engaged in battle, and the sun was darkened – the thunder rolled in the Heavens, and blood flowed in streams – and I heard a voice saying, ‘Such is your luck, such are you called to see, and let it come rough or smooth, you must surely bear it.’
It’s sometimes better to have a father figure to rebel against than nothing, than just a black hole or an absence.
