Bill Medley Quotes

I was making big paintings with mythological themes. When I started painting black figures, the white professors were relieved, and the black students were like, 'She's on our side.' These are the kinds of issues that a white male artist just doesn't have to deal with.

There was certainly, like, a rebellious, like, youthful rage in me. And there was also the fact of no getting away from fact that I am white, and you know, this is predominantly black music, you know.

I tend to play characters that aren't supposed to black or written black.

I don't want to be considered 'the Latino rapper.'

When 'Raw Like Sushi' came out in the U.S., I wasn't considered to be black enough. They didn't really know where to put me. The music wasn't 'black black' sounding. It wasn't R&B; it wasn't straight up hip-hop, although obviously in that dimension and world.

I was a black singer with a white voice, a perfect pop voice.

There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian.

I always give the example, if you turn on the radio today, black radio, Lenny Kravitz is not black. Bob Marley wasn't black: in the beginning, only white college stations played Bob Marley.

I felt black. I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better musicians, they were better athletes, they were not uptight about sex, and they knew how to enjoy life better than most people.

I'm kind of in a middle space, being marketed as a biracial actor. Roles are written either stereotypically black, or they're written 'normal,' which is just code for white.

The western has always been, for me, the bread and butter. It's the easiest place for an identifiable Native American to be able to work. But I do yearn to be known as an actor rather than a 'Native American actor.'

I wanted to play a domestic help all my life... Because I wanted to break my image.

I would be criticized, like, 'You don't talk Korean enough. You sound very American. You sound very white in your music.' And I'm like, 'Whoa.'

I don't want to be boxed in or looked at a certain way, as in, 'Yo, he's an Asian rapper.'

Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.

I've never claimed myself to be a particularly Asian R&B singer. I'm R&B, pure and simple, regardless of my skin colour. Should that matter? I think not.

Just because I'm a girl and it's pop doesn't mean I have to write about love and heartbreak.

I definitely don't feel like I'm what Hollywood thinks of when they think of a Latina actress at all. They can't wrap their minds around it.

When you're 12 and, you know, slightly overweight and - for lack of a better word - white, and you're playing blues, you get a lot of press.

Growing up, I was constantly labeled an 'oreo' by my black peers because of my proper speech and 'valley girl accent.'

The only time my Dad ever said I might have not gotten something because of how I look was when I auditioned for Tyler Perry's 'Meet the Browns.' My dad didn't think I was 'black enough' for the show. My dad isn't the most politically correct person.

I realized I'm a very, very white dancer.

I grew out of the habit of thinking or worrying about being seen as the typical Asian. I don't even know what that means anymore. I'm not really concerned with it.

Have you heard his new song? 'Cause he thinks he's a black man now.

One of the ways [racism] pops up is when they turn a comic into a live-action movie and there's this temptation to make Asian characters white.