Kelela Quotes

So many people of color who made major contributions to American history have been trapped in the purgatory of history.

People of color grow up steeped in 'white' culture. The reverse is not true. And, no, listening to hip-hop on the way to work does not count as immersion.

Sadly, whites are rarely open to what black and brown folks have to say regarding their ongoing experiences with racist mistreatment. And we are especially reluctant to discuss what that mistreatment means for us as whites: namely that we end up with more and better opportunities as the flipside of discrimination.

There's a belonging problem in Hollywood. Who dictates who belongs? The very body who dictates that looks all one way.

I always describe race as the final taboo in American theatre. There's a real reluctance to have that conversation in an open, honest way on the stage.

If you watch any show that stars white people, white people aren't coming up to them like, 'Thank you for showing my face on the big screen.' Because they see their faces in popular culture all the time.

A lot of white men in the music industry are promoting and participating in black culture in a way that is pretty careless. They want the currency of blackness, but they don't want the brunt that comes along with that.

I don't know how often white people look around and think, 'Wow, there's really a lot of white people here; we should fix that.' But I know black people often look around and think, 'Wow, I'm the only one here - why?'

The journey of making 'Hidden Figures' has shown me the automatic privilege that all white men are afforded in America in 2017 and in any and every year before that.

Whiteness is dynamic, relational, and operating at all times and on myriad levels. These processes and practices include basic rights, values, beliefs, perspectives and experiences purported to be commonly shared by all but which are actually only consistently afforded to white people.

The truth is, no, we don't live in a post-racial state anywhere in America, and this is particularly true in Hollywood.

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.

If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.

The only thing that white people have that black people need, or should want, is power-and no one holds power forever.

Rock 'n' roll is much easier if you're white.

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

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.

I am performing this role of the artist and this role of the 'negress' coming into a white-box institution. It's kind of a self-appointed role: the self-designated negress.

It's the same old story. Nothing in this world happens unless white folks says it happens. And therein lies the problem of being a professional black storyteller - writer, musician, filmmaker.

I have never experienced racism in the feminist movement, so it concerned me to think that I was unable to see the subject clearly because I came from white, middle-class privilege.

There are two worlds out there - two Americas out there. If you're a white person, there's one way of being a citizen in our country, and if you're a brown or a black body, there's another way of being a citizen, and that way is very close to death. It's very close to the loss of your life.

I think that, by and large, the predominant voice we hear in rock music is a white male voice.

Baby, black promoters oppressed me before white promoters ever got hold of me. Don't talk skin to me.

That's true but I think the contemporary problem that we are facing increasing numbers of black people and other people of color being thrown into a status that involves work in alternative economies and increasing numbers of people who are incarcerated.

If I were white, I could capture the world.