Aja Naomi King Quotes

I used to be a discipline problem, which caused me embarrassment until I realized that being a discipline problem in a racist society is sometimes an honor.

Anybody who has been discriminated against, who comes from a group that's been discriminated against, knows what it's like.

I value what I learned from being cast in the margins and what that felt like.

Only a straight white person would have no concept of what visibility is. They've never contended with anything but visibility.

Asian males have not been appreciated for what they are. They have always been dissed for what they are not.

When I thought of Christine at first, I was really angry with everything that was given to me as a young girl.

The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to hell!

Whenever black women have a point, they're characterized as angry black women, and therefore the thing they're talking about is no longer of importance because they have to deal with them being overly emotional or something. I recognize that people who respond negatively to what I have to say aren't at a place yet where they are able to learn ... And it's exactly what I'm trying to fight.

Nothing could be more insulting to me than the concept of civil rights. It means perpetual second-class citizenship for me and my kind.

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.

Like one of any minority, I have experienced prejudice.

People only say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman. But all sorts of people write with strong feeling, the way I do.

A riot is the language of the unheard.

You know, people'd always ask 'Why is Jesse Jackson running for the White House?' They never seen the house I'm running from.

And nothing embittered me, which is important, because I think ethnic people and women in this society can end up being embittered because of the lack of affirmative action, you know.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stand up and protest.

Don’t play with us. If you’re not going to give us justice, let us go so that we may help ourselves….We can’t want for benevolent white people to give us handouts.

I am not satisfied as long as the Negro sees life as a long and empty corridor with a "No Exit" sign at the end. The cup of endurance has run over.

It’s getting almost so bad a colored man hasn’t got any country…. The way they are treating my people in the South, the government can go to Hell!

For years now I have heard the word “Wait”. It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never”.

To attempt to explain a system like segregation to a 6 year child is a very difficult thing.

As a woman of color, we're raised to know we have to be twice as good.

Sometimes, you feel like, 'Am I going to be upset about this as a black person or as a woman first? Or am I gonna be both?' Because some things inherently affect black women; some things affect you as a woman and not a black person; and some things just affect you as a black person.

I think that because human difference for so long, in all its various forms, has been the root of so much oppression, sometimes there's the impulse to say let's deny the difference, as though by wishing away the difference we can then wish away the oppression.