Mathew Knowles Quotes

A lot of people don't know that my father is black.

The white audiences thought I was white, my features being what they are, and at every performance I'd have to take off my gloves to prove I was a spade.

I am in a mixed race marriage myself, and I have a mixed race son....The racial perception interest is probably always going to be there to some extent.

Each day when you see us black folk upon the dusty land of your farm or upon the hard pavement of your city streets, you usually take it for granted and think you know us, but our history is far stranger than you suspect, and we are not what we seem.

Sometimes I even feel funny to say I'm in a biracial marriage because people are like, 'Oh, he's Asian?' The subtext is, 'Who cares? You didn't marry a black person.'

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

I'm Asian-American, and I was the only Chinese girl growing up in a white school in San Diego. So I understood what it was like to be different, to always want to fit in and never feel like you ever could.

I was one of three kids of colour in our school. There was a young black brother and sister, and me. So we stood out.

People are like, 'Was it hard growing up mixed?' 'Did you not fit in?' and I'm like, 'No? What? That's the dumbest question ever.'

I was at all-white schools from kindergarten to twelfth grade, so I wanted to feel what it was like just to be me and not, like, Black Amy.

People often expect that I should know a lot of things because I'm black. I don't really explain it to people, but it's like, I'm from Australia, my Mum's Aussie, and I grew up with five other Aussie brothers and sisters.

Whenever someone refers to me as someone "who happens to be black," I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.

My dad's white, my mom's black, and I've struggled with being mixed race.

I don't like the term 'black film,' and I am proud to be black.

From my situation as an African American person in the U.S., people may look at me and think a certain thing without getting to know me. I'm of Nigerian and Caribbean heritage. I went to Yale. What you see is not what you think you're getting.

Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black - and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look.

Color does matter, even though people don't see it. I've lived it my whole life. It's just what I know.

There was always a struggle with being Asian and not being Asian enough. It's going to be down to me to own my race.

I always felt different and it was because I was Middle Eastern. Where most people were very fair, light-skinned, and had blue eyes, I was hairy with dark hair and dark skin.

Have I had experiences by other people identifying me as black and behaving towards me as black? Yes. Just for as long as maybe somebody who was born categorised as black? No.

I identify as black.

Now, I don't see color. People tell me I'm white and I believe them because police officers call me 'sir'.

I'm sure no intelligent white person, in his or her right white mind, want black men and women marrying their white sons and daughters and in return introducing their grandchildren to half brown, kinky haired black people.

When I said I had always hoped to marry in my race, I really do mean that. That doesn't mean I absolutely wouldn't marry outside of it, but there's a culture and traditions to maintain, and I have great pride in them, and I always thought it would be wonderful to share that with somebody of my race.