Back in the 1970s, Kodak tried to give $25m to a black civil rights organisation in Rochester, New York. The company’s shareholders rose up in arms: making this politically charged offering wasn’t the reason they had entrusted Kodak with their money. The donation was withdrawn.
In black neighborhoods, everybody appreciated comedy about real life. In the white community, fantasy was funnier. I started looking for the jokes that were equally hilarious across the board, for totally different reasons.
Good can exist in bad, and bad can exist in good. It’s not black and white.
I find in my poetry and prose the rhythms and imagery of the best – I mean, when I’m at my best – of the good Southern black preachers. The lyricism of the spirituals and the directness of gospel songs and the mystery of blues are in my music or in my poetry and prose, or I missed everything.
It doesn’t matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
Theology is never any help; it is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.
To me, the black black woman is our essential mother, the blacker she is the more us she is and to see the hatred that is turned on her is enough to make me despair, almost entirely, of our future as a people.
I started making work that I assumed would be far too garish, far too decadent, far too black for the world to care about. I, to this day, am thankful to whatever force there is out there that allows me to get away with painting the stories of people like me.
Having Black hair is unique in that Black women change up styles a lot. You can walk down one street block in New York City and see 10 different hairstyles that Black women are wearing: straight curls, short cuts, braids – we really run the gamut.
Intersectionality is an analytic sensibility, a way of thinking about identity and its relationship to power. Originally articulated on behalf of black women, the term brought to light the invisibility of many constituents within groups that claim them as members but often fail to represent them.
Although humans see reality in colour, for me, black and white has always been connected to the image’s deeper truth, to its most hidden meaning.
The soul is part of the body. The mind is part of the body. When folks do physical violence to black people, to black bodies in this country, the soul as we construe it is damaged, too – the mind is damaged, too.
You can change the look of an outfit so easily by changing the kind of jewellery you wear. If you have a basic outfit on – a black sweater and skirt or a simple black dress – you can go from the office to a cocktail party at night just by changing your jewellery. It helps if you change your shoes as well.
We are all somewhere or the other a little grey, not black and white. We have our imperfections.
Rhythm and blues started even before phonograph records were being produced because black people entertained themselves. It wasn’t done for money. It was done for entertainment. Most white people didn’t know anything about this because prejudice kept them from ever seeing what was going on.
Everybody needs to show respect to each others’ ways and the cultural life that you get on this planet. Don’t get caught up on ‘I’m brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.’ You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492? All these names we’re using now are just an illusion made to keep us fighting each other.
I’m very proud to be black, but black is not all I am. That’s my cultural historical background, my genetic makeup, but it’s not all of who I am nor is it the basis from which I answer every question.
Any colour – so long as it’s black.
I grew up in an environment in Birmingham that was really multicultural, with black kids, Irish kids, Indian kids.
For Black Music Month, I would definitely want to celebrate Isaac Hayes.
Learn to love being black.
Martin Luther King was a misguided leader. He worked to be recognized as the leader of black America when what black America needs isn’t a leader, it is education.
My school was 90 percent white, but 90 percent of the kids I played with were black. So I got the best of both worlds. I think that is where my comedy developed.
Atheistic evolution isn’t an intelligent belief, as atheists would have the black community believe.
Black people in America, people from the struggle, immigrants, it’s no generational wealth that we are attached to, so we are tasked to create – in one generation – closing the gap. That’s why we so Doomsday about getting to the check: ’cause it’s life or death for real.
You know, one of the things I like about this world, or at least I like about the way we’re presenting this world, is these issues are terribly complicated – not nearly as black and white as we’re led to believe.
I made my way on to a grey list, a black list even. That’s something I’m very proud of, actually.
‘Roots’ was a massive responsibility because it is this foundational text in the States and it also resonates fairly strongly with pretty much any black community globally.
I used to own an island in the Seychelles and had a big boat there and one day I came across some Somali pirates who were passing by on their way to re-provision their boat. They didn’t even acknowledge me – which is unheard of among sailors – and it was like looking into the eyes of a black mamba.
I am not a black artist, I am an artist.
Systemically, there hasn’t been an oppression more overt and long-lasting than economic oppression against black people and minorities in this country.
I’m black, so I should be able to play a ‘thug?’ No. Hello. Open your mind. I’m a person that believes in breaking barriers.
On ‘Black Ben Carson,’ I had strict no melody thing. I wanted straight, raw, rugged noise music.
Diversity doesn’t mean black and white only.
The strange proposition that black intellectuals – regardless of their training – are ‘race experts’ mainly because they are black is naive and potentially dangerous.
Everybody nowadays rhymes, but out of the people that really, really do it well, it’s still a small community of artists. We all tend to be in the same circles – people like my Wu-Tang brothers, or Black Thought from The Roots.
A lot of my success comes from black music. It’s something I’m very proud of.
I always say I was a liberal, but I wasn’t active in politics. I just assumed I was a liberal because I was black and I was a woman. And I know now that sounds really foolish, but I had different priorities.
That old black magic has me in its spell, That old black magic that you weave so well; Icy fingers up and down my spine, The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine.
We celebrate pride every day of the year – whether it’s black pride, whether LGBTQIA + pride, whether it’s the pride of being a woman, whether it’s the pride of being a mother, we should be proud of who we are each and every day.
Color television! Bah, I won’t believe it until I see it in black and white.
Blacks’ problems lie not in the heads of white people but rather in the wasted and incompletely fulfilled lives of too many black people.
My kids are the reason I continue to strive for something better. They know – as kids who are Muslim, Somali, black Americans – that they’ve always been part of a struggle and that change isn’t easy.
Woody Allen has a wonderful line: ‘Today I’m a star. What will I be tomorrow? A black hole?’ That’s very important to know – that you have the moment, then you lose the moment. You have to see your chances, you have to take them, and you also have to see when you don’t have chances to take.
A mirror reflects what you see, and a black mirror shows the dark side of it.
Maybe black and white is the best medium for landscapes, I don’t know.
The American dream comes from opportunity. The opportunity comes from our founding principles, our core values that’s held together and protected by the Constitution. Those ideas are neither Republican, Democrat, conservative, liberal, white, or black. Those are American ideologies.
I realize that I’m black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and this is everybody’s wish.
All has been looted, betrayed, sold; black death’s wing flashed ahead.
God is on my side, and that’s all I need. I get up in the morning, I pray to God. I don’t pray to the president, the governor, the mayor, no black caucus, no this and that. I pray to God, and that’s the end of it.
Seattle is like a global gumbo, a melting pot with all kinds of people – the rich, the poor, white people, some Chinese, Filipino, Jewish and black people – they’re all here.
Black and white are the colors of photography. To me they symbolize the alternatives of hope and despair to which mankind is forever subjected.
Every 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.
After all, the wool of a black sheep is just as warm.
Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but black and white films still hold an affectionate place in my heart; they have an incomparable mystique and mood.
Black is a great colour when it comes to being safe and classy. It looks great on any body type and can be paired with anything. So when in doubt, go for black.
