Ruth Negga Quotes

On the one hand, there is no reason that a black person needs to live a portion of his or her life being concerned about the people of color around him. On the other hand, if you don't you're crazy.

When you're in a black group, you have to keep in mind you're not black. You just have to be sensitive. We have to be appreciative that the black nationalist struggle is a nationalist struggle.

I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love.

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

I can tell you that anyone who knows me knows that there is not a racial bone in my body.

I had to say to myself, 'I haven't written enough about blackness, yet it's part of my consciousness and my lived experience.' I had to get over that anxiety of 'I haven't done this before.'

Abdias do Nascimento was the first writer who gave me racial consciousness. It was through his books and writings that I first took in the real weight of race in our society. He was the main influence on me because in my family, race was never an issue.

Even when black folks make me angry, I know that the foundation is that I love us. I want us to win, and I want us to have all the things that we deserve in the world. And that's driven by love.

I'm not for having to support everything that's black, because I definitely don't. But I do feel like it is imperative for us to see that we are not a monolithic people.

I believe that we have to be so race-conscious in this day and age.

When you say that you are a race man, it means that you embrace the entire black community regardless of the hue, whether somebody is very light and could pass for possibly white or someone is very dark.

I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some of them, but you know our race has all colors.

Be nice to the whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.

Today's multiracial Americans are at greater liberty to choose how they'd like to be seen, and under less pressure to pass for white.

I don't see a white woman. I see a black woman, even though my mother is white. Knowing that has made my life easier, I think.

A racial community provides not only a sense of identity, that luxury of looking into another's face and seeing yourself reflected back, but a sense of security and support.

I've never tried to run away from my race. I was born a black man. You know that in your bones as soon as you are able to understand this country... My approach to life about race is, I don't see the difference between black people and white people.

Welcome to post-racial America. I'm the face of post-racial America.

As far as I'm concerned, and this is a big theme of mine, I'm not interested in white people loving me. It's an unrealistic expectation. Black people don't love anybody but themselves.

My black brothers and sisters - of all religious beliefs, or of no religious beliefs - we all have in common the greatest binding tie we could have. We are all black people!

Our leader will not be a white man with a Black heart, nor a Black man with a white heart, but a Black man with a Black heart.

In all my interviews with Mr. Lincoln, I was impressed with his entire freedom from popular prejudice against the colored race. He was the first great man that I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself.

Racial harmony does not mean racial mixing.

I am the equal of any white man. I want you to feel the same way.

Some of my best friends are white.