Black Quotes

I always enjoyed playing ball, and it didn't matter to me whether I played with white kids or black. I never understood why an issue was made of who I played with, and I never felt comfortable, when I grew up, telling other people how to act.

As I detail in my new book: 'Hard Measures, How Aggressive CIA Actions After 9/11 Saved American Lives,' there are many myths surrounding the detention of a relatively small number of top terrorists at CIA-run 'black sites' from 2002 until they were sent to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.

You had 42 blacks that ran on the Republican ticket this Cycle, 14 made of them made it to the general election and two of us made it to the House of Representatives. So I think that there is a new movement that needs to have a voice in the Congressional Black Caucus.

Why shouldn't rap be esoteric, able to take in current events, history and criticism? I guess it's this old idea of containment - that rappers, because they're black, can't and shouldn't aspire to look outside the ghetto for influence.

And I might add the confidence with which distracted persons do oftentimes, when they are awake, think, they see black fiends in places, where there is no black object in sight without them.

I have reached a state in life where I can buy a whole house full of chairs and can bump into them until they are black and blue.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

If you think black people have a motivation problem, open up a Wal-Mart and advertise a thousand jobs. Watch 5,000 people show up.

I imagine it was much different in the 1970s. That was the Renaissance for black actors, albeit in blaxploitation movies. There was a much greater preponderance of work then than there is now.

Since I was 16, I've felt a black cloud hangs over me. Since then, I have taken pills for depression.

Today my passion is still black and white. Today if I have an array of cameras in front of me the one I would reach for that I would feel most comfortable with would be a 4 X 5 View camera. I was once working in a sort of soft light situation.

Abortion and racism are evil twins, born of the same lie. Where racism now hides its face in public, abortion is accomplishing the goals of which racism only once dreamed. Together, abortionists are destroying humanity at large and the black community in particular.

But between sets I'd sneak over to the black places to hear blues musicians. It got to the point where I was making my living at white clubs and having my fun at the other places.

The basic tenet of black consciousness is that the black man must reject all value systems that seek to make him a foreigner in the country of his birth and reduce his basic human dignity.

But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

I wanted to do the whole album in black and white, and it really killed me that when you see it in the light it's got green in it. I don't know what the hell that was about.

I don't totally believe that all of the politicians see a problem with the gap between the scores of black children and other groups. I believe that many politicians think this has been the way it has always been, so what's the problem?

The years like great black oxen tread the world, and God, the herdsman goads them on behind, and I am broken by their passing feet.

I've always been very image prone, along the lines of bands like Black Sabbath and even Devo.

There is not a liberal America and a conservative America - there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and latino America and asian America - there's the United States of America.

I asked him if he ever hung out with black guys in high school and he said, 'Well, no. They always had these angry looks on their faces. Who wouldn't look ticked off having to deal with nitwits like him?

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 think the number one thing Black women and all Black people should be paying attention to is our health.

Everything was black in the harbor, but there were still some fires burning on the ships.

I want to see somebody go to jail over the financial crisis and not just black, brown and poor whites over humbles and minor drug beefs.

I think that show will go down in history... people will scratch their heads and say 'How did this ever get on the air?' I mean, they finally have a planet that's populated with a black race and then they present them as savage warriors, and the men want the white girl!

Too many people, because they were white and poor, black and rich, or just plain busy with something other than politics, have felt they had no voice in our government.

I remember how being young and black and gay and lonely felt. A lot of it was fine, feeling I had the truth and the light and the key, but a lot of it was purely hell.

When you were growing up in the 30s, 20s, of course the 40s, all black people at least in the Washington, D.C., area were required to live among themselves.

I had a non-existent knowledge of Queen Victoria's early years. Like everyone else, I thought of her as an old lady dressed in black. My mom had told me about her, though, that she had a very loving relationship with Albert, that they had lots of kids, and that he died young.