Laurence Fishburne Quotes

As a black man, sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing has underlying bigotry, or it's a normal conversation and you're being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when its not there.

It doesn't even feel like racism is real. It just feels like the weirdest ploy, like we're just being had on so many levels. It's even kind of funny when you think about it. A reason not to like someone is 'because you're black.' C'mon, man. How dumb is that?

Black reporters are as capable of racism as anyone else.

People think I'm this angry black man walking around in a constant state of rage.

I had this stereotypical view that black people apart from me probably threw stones and lived in huts.

There are lots of research, of course, saying that a vast majority of us have been exposed to racial biases and stereotypes and, to some extent, we've internalized them, because that's so ubiquitous. That's why I'm so bored with the conversation about who's a racist and who's not.

White people scare the crap out of me... I have never been attacked by a black person, never been evicted by a black person, never had my security deposit ripped off by a black landlord, never had a black landlord... never been pulled over by a black cop, never been sold a lemon by a black car salesman, never seen a black car salesman, never had a black person deny me a bank loan, never had a black person bury my movie, and I've never heard a black person say, "We're going to eliminate ten thousand jobs here— have a nice day

I honestly thought that since I didn't associate myself with any people or groups who were outwardly racist, and I didn't act in a way that struck me as racist, that this meant that I myself was not a racist, and that racism wasn't a huge issue.

We all, white and black, carry various biases around with us.

The more afraid we are of the shadow of racism, the more conscious we might become of our own unsuspected biases.

This is really honest: I have to remind myself not to look another black man as a threat.

So often, blackness is seen in a negative light.

When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.

Racism is like high blood pressure—the person who has it doesn’t know he has it until he drops over with a God damned stroke. There are no symptoms of racism. The victim of racism is in a much better position to tell you whether or not you’re a racist than you are.

Denying racism is the new racism.

In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it.

I think an overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man, that he's African American.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

When people rely on surface appearances and false racial stereotypes, rather than in-depth knowledge of others at the level of the heart, mind and spirit, their ability to assess and understand people accurately is compromised.

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?

I can be standing in Barneys with my coat and purse and my selections, and some white woman will say, 'Can you get this in my size?' What she sees is a black woman, and her service button goes off.

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

A myth is an old lie that people believe in. White people believe that they're better than anyone else on earth - and that's a myth.

We know that we're not supposed to be racially biased, and we don't want to think of ourselves as racially biased, so we tell ourselves a different story.

It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.