Russell Hornsby Quotes

Everything about us black people is complicated, us being here, being a minority, being a woman, all those things are complicated.

I think my work shows that I love women. I understand where these types of criticisms are coming from because black people have been so dogged out in the media, they're just extra sensitive.

I don't like crying. I'm a country boy, and we're the product of our upbringing. As a boy, I was told that men don't cry.

I had to confront my fears and master my every demonic thought about inferiority, insecurity, or the fear of being black, young, and gifted in this Western culture.

Racism has been for everyone like a horrible, tragic car crash, and we've all been heavily sedated from it. If we don't come into consciousness of this tragedy, there's going to be a violent awakening we don't want. The question is, can we wake up?

I'm a country boy, and we're the product of our upbringing. As a boy, I was told that men don't cry.

You know, people'd always ask 'Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?' They never seen the house I'm running from.

In one sense, the stories I read betrayed me. Too few gave me back my mirror image. Fewer still spoke to, or acknowledged, the existence of the problems I faced as a black foster child from a dysfunctional and badly broken home.

I think a lot about the private emotions of black people - what we feel and yet is rarely publicly expressed.

If you are black the only roads into the mainland of American life are through subservience, cowardice, and loss of manhood.

The first decade of the twentieth century was not a great time to be born black and poor and female in St. Louis, Missouri, but Vivian Baxter was born black and poor, to black and poor parents. Later she would grow up and be called beautiful. As a grown woman she would be known as the butter-colored lady with the blowback hair.

Men are not usually forthcoming in the expression of their emotions.

I think that, as a black girl, you grow up internalizing all these messages that say you shouldn't accept your hair or your skin tone or your natural features or that you shouldn't have a voice or that you aren't smart.

I'm not walking around feeling black all the time. That would stress me out. It would make me crack.

To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world.

A lot of black women still carry a lot of pain when they see black men with women who aren't black, and that's really unfortunate that that could make us so upset. It has to do with self esteem.

I don't think I know a single person who's a minority who hasn't experienced some form of discrimination at one time or another.

The Cure wrote 'Boys Don't Cry,' and it's the same today: as a boy, you're not meant to show your emotions, but if you don't have a job or any prospects, you're going to be depressed, and it will be much worse if you can't express that. I hate the term because it's become a buzzword, but it's toxic masculinity.

Generations of black women have anxiously watched as our children walk out into a world set against them. We teach them how to respond to police and how to react to racist comments, knowing that these lessons are not guaranteed to protect our children.

When you're a young black man, you're not allowed to be emotional. One of the reasons I act is people pay me to be emotional.

Being a black person in America is exhausting.

There's an anecdote that's really been sticking with me: To be a Black man in America, you are born into the horror genre. You are not safe. Period. Full stop.

I grew up poor, black, and working class.

While white women and men of color also experience discrimination, all too often their experiences are taken as the only point of departure for all conversations about discrimination. Being front and center in conversations about racism or sexism is a complicated privilege that is often hard to see.

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism.