John Michael Hayes Quotes

You look at how Barack Obama has had to conduct himself as President. It reminds me of Jackie Robinson, how he had to be very careful to reassure people that this was all right. And you still have people trying to tear him down. They make up all sorts of lies, with the goal of making him seem illegitimate.

People ask if I'm concerned about getting pigeonholed. No one asks, 'Ellen, you've done seven straight roles in a row. Shouldn't you shake it up, do something queer?' There's still that double standard.

If I write badly about blacks, homosexuals and women, it is because of these who I met were that. There are many 'bads' - bad dogs, bad censorship; there are even 'bad' white males. Only, when you write about 'bad' white males, they don't complain about it. And need I say that there are 'good' blacks, 'good' homosexuals and 'good' women?

It doesn't make it any easier that people form opinions and make judgment calls and think I'm something that I'm not or do things that I don't.

As a woman of color, I always have to be at 150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent.

When a woman stands up and is strong and commanding, she's called bossy. When a man does the same thing, people say, 'They're strong.'

A lot of people experience racism at different times on different terms.

Gender discrimination is not the only form of discrimination one has to deal with.

People stereotype female rappers a whole lot.

Just because I'm confident and will tell you that I'm awesome and that I'm great, I'm all of the sudden the bad guy? Why am I always the bad guy?

The consequences for failure are very different if you're a woman or a person of color than they are if you're a guy. If you're a guy who makes a mistake, you get a second chance. Often, for those of us who are outsiders, we make a mistake, and that's the end of the conversation.

In martial arts, for every attack, there is a counter you can throw. Somebody traps you, you can throw a hook. But there is no counter for bias.

If one of my own makes a mistake, they judge us all. Tomorrow, if a white man in Africa makes a mistake, we should judge all white people? No!

I've been called pushy and aggressive and all the negative words that are rarely applied to men with the same traits. But it doesn't bother me.

I've not been discriminated against, but I can see it happen. And not just race but gender and sexuality, too. It's stereotyping, lazy casting, which is an issue: that people can't see outside the box.

You can't just be letting certain people get away with certain things and not others.

I judge by appearances. People tell me I shouldn't.

I have these meetings with really powerful men and they ask me all the time, 'Where are your kids? Are your kids here?' It's such a weird question. Never in a million years do I ask guys where their kids are. It would be comparable to me going to a guy, 'Do you feel like you see your kids enough?'

People took some part of us and used it to discriminate against us. In our case, it was our ethnicity; it's precisely the same thing for sexual orientation.

People want to say there isn't racial profiling at the airport, but let's be honest. If you first name is Mohammed, and your last name isn't Ali, leave a little extra time.

Prejudice is a disease. And when they come for you, or refuse your worth, I will be ready for their stones. I belong to you.

Costs are incurred whenever any group is treated as lesser or the other, whether they are women, racial, or religious minorities, or the LGBT.

Women can't have an honest exchange in front of men without having it called a cat fight.

The stain of prejudice is often indelible.

Nobody hates us as ourselves. In their minds we're not human... They don't hate us because we did something or said something. They make us stand for an evil they invent and then they want to kill it in us.