Tracee Ellis Ross Quotes

The poor black people in it make the black people in Gone With the Wind look like Malcolm X.

Let's face it: there aren't a lot of black superheroes. So, in dealing with a black superhero, you're going to deal with ugly history and the beauty of history.

Scores of African-Americans have written both appreciatively and critically about what 'The Cosby Show' meant to them over the years.

Black-ish is really a show about an American family and these are some of the topics that come up - for all of us, in different ways - and we get to see how this family is walking through it.

We have African-Americans and black people getting behind the scenes more and more, we get true black images in television and film...because we have black people behind them. They can tell stories from those points of view and bring to life those characters who have yet to be shown. As long as we have people behind the camera just as much as in front of the camera doing the work, then we'll always be good.

The way you speak of the characters in your story shows what you think of the values of conservatives‚ or evolution, for example. It shows where your moral center is. So you are in the message business whether you like it or not.

You know what they say: 'Once you go black, your parents don't talk to you anymore.

For a long period of time, the media covered rap music and hip hop the same way they cover a lot of black people, people of color, you know, the bad news happens to be news. They used to have these little stupid colloquialisms that pop up like, "You know what? No news is bad news!" They trick the masses into thinking that any news is great for you. And I just think that's a piece of crap.

I think the central theme about black society is that it has got elements of a defeated society

As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that’s my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I’m interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent.[These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love.

I think many Dutch just don't know the history of Black Pete, that he is rooted in slavery, and how he was used to dehumanize a race of people. Once they realize this, many stop using this character, but those who continue are either in denial, insensitive or actually racists.

In terms of black music - the only music that we can call our own, that was really born here - I don't think a lot has been done to chronicle the relations between American history and where black music fits in.

Certainly, black horror movie fans have, you know, been particularly vocal. I mean, there's the whole Eddie Murphy routine about, you know, black people in a horror movie wouldn't last very long. Right? They just walk in - you hear get out. Too bad we can't stay, baby.

I grew up on Bond, and it is part of my culture, especially in Britain. Just to be known as a Bond girl is an incredible thing for me, because some of my favorite actresses have been Bond girls, like Diana Rigg and Honor Blackman, and they have continued to work and be brilliant. I am honored and flattered to be called that, even though I don't really think my character is Bond-girly, but I'm still going to be labeled as a Bond girl, which is completely brilliant.

I always have felt that elders are really important. I think it's because, in my little Southern black culture, elders really were respected. Everybody listened to them. They may not have agreed - that's a whole different story - but they would totally listen and consider what the elder had to say.

I was very moved to see that the name of the boat was Hamlet - an imaginary character becomes so important to people, we think about them so much that we name a ship after them. The imaginary lives on in the real.

I think actors always like to think they don't bring the character home, and then their family all laugh and tell you otherwise.

I don't like perpetuating the stereotype of black males being drug dealers, and criminals.

Literature is the voice of the age and the state; the character, energy, and resources of the country are reflected and imaged forth in the conceptions of its great minds; they are organs of the time; they speak not their own language, they scarce think their own thoughts; but under an impulse like the prophetic enthusiasm of old, they must feel and utter the sentiments which society inspires.

It's old white ladies, old black ladies, old black men, who don't even listen. Everyone else, everyone who understands, likes Snoop Dogg. They like my music.

Well, there were definitely elements of my rise in radio that had to do with my being black. But going back as far as Walter Winchell, Army Archerd and Hedda Hopper, legendary wags would grab a radio microphone and talk about what Errol Flynn and other stars were up to.

I've heard Donald [Trump]s ay this at his rallies, and it's really unfortunate that he paints such a dire negative picture of black communities in our country.

I recently spoke at a university where a student told me it was such a shame that Nigerian men were physical abusers like the father character in my novel. I told him that I had recently read a novel called American Psycho,and that it was a shame that young Americans were serial murderers.

I cannot imagine where we would have been without BET. Many like me who operate in black America can only get our balanced story told nationally on BET talk shows.

I think rap music is the sole reason for a lot of black acceptance in pop culture; because the music is very popular, it gets our image out in other ways than in movies.