Michael Dyson Quotes

Blackness is not simply a reactionary title or identity; that is indeed the "negative" way of characterizing African American identity.

Independence is never given to a people, it has to be earned; and, once earned, must be defended.

I sometimes wish I were African American because people don't bash them afterward. It's the hardest to be a woman.

You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.

I think that, as African-Americans, oftentimes we have to put ourselves on pedestals as opposed to really looking at ourselves and trying to understand ourselves and become better people. We always have to be on pedestals.

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.

There's no question that I'm African-American. OK? I'm a black man. We're not going to escape that.

I think any label is bad. I'm more than a label.

Age brings a freedom. When you're young, you're much more subject to the idea of what feminine is or how you should look or how you should behave.

What is blackness? Is it the way you talk? Do you got to say, 'Dey this, dey dat.' Or the way you dress? Or is it the forgiving of certain things? What is black enough?

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife – this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self.

We are not fighting for integration, nor are we fighting for separation. We are fighting for recognition as human beings. We are fighting for human rights.

You know, one of the ways we adapted to not being free was to think that our group identity was again, the way we were being black, and being down with the cards. That was the way we were going to get it. Unity was everything.

I'm not a representative of blackness, and I'm not a healer.

Nobody likes being told who or what they are.

We're not monolithic. What is blackness? To me, how do you define that?

I am proud to be black man.

When people meet me in person, they're usually surprised at how petite I am because there's this idea that because I'm black, I just look a certain way.

There's this responsibility you feel to present a certain thing that kind of respectability politics. I think that became the only accepted way of defining black culture. I started to become too aware of 'How does this look?' instead of 'Who are these characters?'

Even though my label is that of a beauty queen, I'm not going to limit myself to that, just because that's my title.

I want my portraits to create a space where blackness can breathe.

People ask me why my figures have to be so black. There are a lot of reasons. First, the blackness is a rhetorical device. When we talk about ourselves as a people and as a culture, we talk about black history, black culture, black music. That's the rhetorical position we occupy.

Labels can be really helpful when we have the autonomy to label ourselves. But when other people label us without our permission, that's when it becomes dangerous.