Sitting Bull Quotes

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man, he would have made me so in the first place.

God made me an Indian.

I mean, a Mexican boy couldn't be anything else but an Indian. And why did you take the name of Quinn, they used to say to me. Hey, you're an Indian, so I played Indians.

Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.

I want to be known for what I am, black and white, because I'm proud of both.

If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows.

I had an Indian face, but I never saw it as Indian, in part because in America the Indian was dead. The Indian had been killed in cowboy movies, or was playing bingo in Oklahoma. Also, in my middle-class Mexican family indio was a bad word, one my parents shy away from to this day. That's one of the reasons, of course, why I always insist, in my bratty way, on saying, Soy indio! - "I am an Indian!"

When I first came to Harvard, I thought to myself, 'What kind of an Indian am I?' because I did not grow up on a reservation. But being an Indian is a combination of things. It's your blood. It's your spirituality. And it's fighting for the Indian people.

I am a black man inside and outside and you are white men on the outside, but inside, you are Africans like me.

I come from an interracial family: My father is from Nigeria, and so he is African-American, and my mother is American and white, so I rarely see skin color. It's never an issue for me.

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

I am an African-American in America. That will never change. But I don't have to be defined by that.

I don't want to be a race-transcending leader. I want to be deeply understood as a man, as African- American, as a Christian, all that I am.

My family is Native American, and I was raised with Native American ceremonies.

I am a member of the Muskogee people. I'm a poet, a musician, a dreamer of sorts, a questioner. Like everyone else, I'm looking for answers of some sort or the other.

I have made myself what I am. And I would that I could make the red people as great as the conceptions of my own mind, when I think of the Great Spirit that rules over us all.

I don't see myself as a 'black actor,' I'm just Shemar Moore the actor. I'm very proud to be black, but I'm just as much black as I am white.

It had never occurred to me that my colour - or lack of it - was an issue for some people, but then I moved to Sydney, and apparently it was. People look at me and don't see what they think is a typical Aboriginal. Thankfully, my mother raised me well in knowing where I come from and who I am, and I'm proud of that.

I'm a half-breed. You know, I'm Puerto Rican and Norwegian from descent, and I grew up, born and raised in New York City, and I stood out amongst my friends in my community. I was very blond-haired, white, and 'Lemonhead' was the name that they gave me.

I see the face of a child. He lives in a great city. He is black. Or he is white. He is Mexican, Italian, Polish. None of that matters. What matters, he's an American child.

I think what I came through is great, but my son can take it to another level, not having to fight racism. His mother's a Norwegian and I'm mixed up four or five times, so he can face the world.

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

I have a complex heritage: my mom is African American, and my dad is Jewish. Both were activists, and they met during the movement in the '70s.

I'm a member of a very complex and richly valued race.

The music I like or the football teams I like or the food I eat has nothing to do with me being black.