Nicole Beharie Quotes

So much has happened to obscure the dialogue about race and about gender and discrimination in general, especially where those things touch on economics.

Only a woman can tell you what it's like to be a woman in a society where men are in charge. When you have one demographic that controls the livelihood of minorities, then you're always going to have abuses of power. So this goes way beyond Hollywood.

Women of color have always been kind of boxed in by the idea that the more you talk about the misogyny of your own community, the more you make that community look bad.

When I talk about feminism, sometimes I feel like being a black woman is cast aside.

There are many, many different kinds of intersectional exclusions - not just black women but other women of color. Not just people of color, but people with disabilities. Immigrants. LGBTQ people. Indigenous people.

As a black and as a woman, I didn't think that I would really want to live in any of the eras before this, because I would inevitably be worse off. I would have spent more time struggling just to prove I was human than doing my work.

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

It would be a tragic mistake for us out here to imagine that Bush represents the hearts and the minds of the majority of your countrymen. Many of your black and other compatriots must be just as anguished as we are.

I cannot be made into the commentator for the unspoken black masses.

It is bad enough to be white and poor; it is worse still to be black, or brown, and female, and young, and poor. Simply said, race makes class hurt more.

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.

Bill Cosby is a famous black guy who has a bully pulpit the size of the world; it's global. He puts his colossal foot on the vulnerable necks of poor people, and as a result of that, we don't have a balanced conversation.

I know how hard it is to be a woman, especially a black woman.

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change.

I certainly know about the oppression and prejudices of being black and a woman and from the South.

Obviously, I have certain policy positions that I push and advocate for that would benefit people dealing in a system that breeds inequality and makes life more difficult for people.

Black women as a group have never been fools. We couldn't afford to be.

I do not have the answers and as a woman I do not intend to play my own thoughts over the truth. I can clearly state the problems and tell you that I suffer from them.

No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women... When black people are talked about the focus tends to be on black men; and when women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women.

My concern is what will happen to that white minority in the future because…with all our suffering, we are being hardened. The government claims that it would be committing suicide by not giving us political rights.

Congress is a middle-aged, middle-class, white male power structure. No wonder it has been so totally unresponsive to the needs of this country.

We Blacks have a long history of serving as cannon fodder for interests that are not our own.

With what moral authority can they [the U. S.] speak of human rights — the rulers of a nation in which the millionaire and beggar coexist; the Indian is exterminated; the black man is discriminated against; the woman is prostituted; and the great masses of Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Latin Americans are scorned, exploited, and humiliated?

A party whose mission is to live entirely upon the discovery of grievances are apt to manufacture the element upon which they subsist.

As a black man, so often you grow up suppressing your emotions and sensitivity.