Mark Bradford Quotes

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

I'm racist against non-black people.

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

I remember classes in college where the professor was espousing certain theories about how blacks were inherently less intelligent. But I learned a long time ago to give people the benefit of the doubt, not to assume that somebody was reacting to you because of race.

I know I am judged unfairly by my physical characteristics and ostracized because of that so I say, "Yes, I'm a black man."

If you're black, you can't just be ordinary. All successful black people are extraordinary.

"Race." I really can't understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both "black" and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can't take them seriously.

Stop saying you're not racist because you have a friend that's black. That's like saying you're not a pedophile because you have a friend that's a kid.

I am not an American; I am one of twenty-two million black people who are victims of Americanism.

Santa Claus was white and everything bad was black. The little ugly duckling was the black duck, and the black cat was the bad luck. And if I threaten you, I'm going to blackmail you.I said, 'Momma, why don't they call it 'whitemail'? They lie too.'

I Hated Duke. I Felt Like They Only Recruited Black Players That Were Uncle Toms.

The core of the culture is racism and how black men are viewed. They've always been demonized and seen as threats in our culture. Another holdover from slavery. We've got to deal with that core root of racism and demonization of the upbringing of black men. Black women are not exempt by any means.

When I was perceived as a black man I became a threat to public safety. When I was dressed as myself, it was my safety that was threatened.

They don't let many black people in the governor's mansion in Alabama, unless they're cleaning.

[T]he courts are so willing to assume that anything that is predominantly black must be inferior.... The mere fact that a school is black does not mean that it is the product of an unconstitutional violation.

White liberals are the most racist people there are, because they put blacks in a box and insist that they think one way - and if they don't, they attack them as illegitimate, all the while denying that their policies destroy blacks.

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

Three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye, but all were black and therefore, by Lamar's own figuring, hardly human at all.

Young black men in America have an identity ascribed to them that is a direct legacy of slavery.

A lot of racism going on in the world right now. Who's more racist? Black people or white people? Black people. You know why? 'Cuz we hate black people too! Everything white people don't like about black people, black people really don't like about black people.

As for the not-black black president issue - white people can imagine blacks worse off than them, no problem. And now they can imagine blacks better off, no problem. But they still can't imagine black people who are just like them. That's the real problem. That's racism. Not being able to believe that those others are actually just like you.

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.

Either because I was an athlete or because I was black - probably both - there seemed to be a clear assumption that I wouldn't be up to the work.