Jean-Michel Basquiat Quotes

One of the things that I am happy about in my life as an artist is that I am not considered a Hispanic artist.

We're not monolithic. What is blackness? To me, how do you define that?

Some black filmmakers will say, "I don't want to be considered a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker." I don't think that. I'm a black woman filmmaker.

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

Being a black artist, the first thing people want to talk about is your blackness, the importance of your blackness, and your black presence.

I've never been one to bow down to people who try to question my identity because I don't fit their mould of what an Aboriginal Australian is supposed to be or look like.

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.

I've never excluded myself because of color. It's never been part of the radar, when I look at anything I do. The majority of the roles that I've played have had very little to do with being black. It doesn't matter what color you are.

It's not enough even to have one black Barbie... because black women are not a monolith.

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

In the States I might be an Asian face, look different from everyone else in TV and in music, but in Korea I look like everybody else, in Asia I look like everybody else.

I don't think kids of color should have to search far and wide to find books that reflect their experience.

I've always considered myself a person of color.

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

Black people have to define who we are, or others do it for us.

There are a plethora of ways of being black, just like there's many ways to being white.

I really just prefer to be exactly who I am, and black is really the closest race and cultural category that represents the essence of who I am.

To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.

I think there was a point in the past when I felt that my options as an artist were either to make race a nonissue and deny its impact on life and just say, "Don't think of me as an Asian cartoonist. Just think of me as a cartoonist."

Black comics, they only watch Black comedians. You're a comedian; you're not just a Black comedian. You're a comedian. I try to get that through to everybody.

'Yellow Face' marks my summation of multiculturalism.

Black people, we are not this monolithic group, you know?

I had this idea that I wanted to do this mixture of visions of African American women and visions of African American men. And call it 'The Men' and call it 'The Women' and show different faces of these two people.

Sometimes I read that I'm not 100 per cent Chinese, because I don't look all that Chinese. That's a strange one - I am Chinese.

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.