Stephen Carter Quotes

In general, the mass media tell us that black people are not loving, that our lives are so fraught with violence and aggression that we have no time to love.

I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.

There's so many, 'no, black people aren't like that' barriers in mainstream media.

Blacks on prime-time TV are only portrayed as comedians - and often in no better a light than 'Amos & Andy.'

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.

When I started, black people were either victims or they were the perpetrators; they were the boogie men who jumped out of the bushes and did terrible things to you.

We only put the negative black people on television. We don't put the good, hard-working black people.

It really upsets me that the media insists on turning 'Do the Right Thing' or 'Boyz N the Hood' into 'black films.' They are American films. They may open the window on the black experience, but they had things to say to everybody. That's why they were so successful.

The mainstream media choose to flaunt story lines that make white America appear guilty of continued institutional racism, while black racism against whites is ignored as an acceptable disposition given our nation's history.

We think of Shots Fired as almost an autopsy of Ferguson that shows the events from every street in the house. And, in dealing with these two murders of a black victim and a white victim, we show the ways that communities and the media deal with victims differently based on race.

Black and awkward is the worst, because black people are stereotyped as being anything but awkward in mainstream media... Black people are always portrayed to be cool or overly dramatic, anything but awkward.

There are so many people that don't come in contact with black men. Whether they live in a homogeneous area that's mostly white or whether they live in places where they don't have to come in contact with them. So what kind of contact do they have with African-American males? They have the media, and that's it.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'

I feel like my work has been my path to freedom from having grown up in a segregated environment.

Mainstream media has convinced people that black people aren't relatable. So when a Jewish person comes up to me and is all, 'Oh man, I love that one scene from Episode 3, I watch it over and over again,' I'm so happy. Because that's what I want.

So often when Black men have to play roles on TV, we're either the noble savage or we're completely a savage, and there's no nuance.

I don't think people in America understand race, and how deep the hooks of whiteness there are in our consciousness.

Mainstream media's representation, or its guerrilla decontextualization, of black men's lives in particular can set the stage for erroneous assumptions capable of damaging an individual or a nation.

I feel that racial profiling may be a very complicated and long-standing problem. It will take a long time even to make tiny progress.

The white man, in his press, is going to identify me with 'hate.'

Mass media over-represents persons of color in negative ways, especially as criminals, relative to the share of crime actually done by such persons.

Some people resented the fact I was trying to break a white man's record.

The press is largely directed at white society or the so-called electorate whose values are laced with racial prejudice against black people.

If you are black on television, you are probably going to be some kind of thug, gangster, or portrayed in a negative light. If you are some type of Muslim, you are going to be blowing stuff up. If you are Hispanic, you are going to be some type of gangbanger. I've felt like this for years.

I don't think that people generally realize what the motion picture industry has done to the American Indian, as a matter of fact, all ethnic groups. All minorities. All non-whites. People just simply don't realize. They take it for granted that that's the way people are going to be presented and that these cliches are just going to be perpetuated.