Kara Walker Quotes

I don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

What is blackness? Is it the way you talk? Do you got to say, 'Dey this, dey dat.' Or the way you dress? Or is it the forgiving of certain things? What is black enough?

I definitely am not white.

Well who's black and what is a black person?

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

It would seem that some black people want to say that when you, as a black, become successful, you cease to be black. That's ridiculous.

I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

I'm black, and it's a very important part of what I am. I'm not embarrassed about it.

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

Growing up I definitely, definitely had a bunch of things of, 'Um, am I black enough?' - and I guess specifically, 'Am I German enough?' Why are we measuring blackness?

As a black person, I'm used to going to places in which I might be the only black person that shows up there. This experience has an effect on the way you see yourself in the world and what it means to be black in the world.

God made a mistake with me. I'm actually black, trapped in a white body.

I identify as black.

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

What I really hoped to do with my work was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.

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 don't think being black has held me back at all. Being black makes you strong.

There haven't been enough profound things written about what being black means and what a black character is. Nobody knows.

I don't mind being black. I'm black out loud. It's more than the people that they are, it's the condition that they represent.

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

Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition of what a black person is. I'm mixed, yes, but in the world I'm defined as black before I'm defined white. I've never been called white.

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black.