Uzodinma Iweala Quotes

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

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

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

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

I always wonder if my kids will say they're mixed or black.

The perception of linked fate and that feeling of being always on the spot as a representative of the race, at least in mixed company, are features of African American life that predate affirmative action and arise outside of its presence.

I've heard that I've gotten a lighter complexion, as if I've bleached my skin. I think that is so stupid and ludicrous. For those who want to bleach their skin, that's fine. I just didn't bleach mine. I'm a black woman. I don't want to be anything but a black woman.

I don't look like a white woman. I look Somali.

We call each other colored people, black people, but not negro…

Regardless of what I've ever done or will ever do, I'll always be black.

Unlike Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Jackie Robinson never tried to convert himself into an acceptable black man.

I'm tired of cookie-cutter monolithic representation of black folks.

I do write about race a lot, but I don't think writers - of any shade or background or whatever - have to write about certain subjects.

I'm not a token black guy.

I'm more black than I am white. That's the accurate answer from my truth.

When I started, I was aware of using the black as a rhetorical device. It's understanding that black people come in a wide range of colors, but you find instances in a lot of black literature in which the blackness is used as a metaphor. In some places, you can find an extreme blackness used as a descriptive.

My concerns have always been to do the best job I can. But I am conscious that I'm a black manager and I am conscious that there is a profile that goes with that.

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.

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

There's not one black narrative. There's not one way to be black.

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

I don't see myself a Great Black Hope. I'm just a golfer who happens to be black and Asian. It doesn't matter whether they're white, black, brown or green.

As a teenager, my blackness was also questioned by some of the life choices I made that weren't considered to be 'black' choices. For example, joining the swim team when it is a known fact that 'black folk don't swim'; or choosing to become a vegetarian when blacks clearly love chicken.

Furthermore, it is significant that the marked characteristics of this race are being here emphasized most.

I read so much stuff that black women say, especially about my relationship. 'Oh, he left his black wife to go be with some exotic chick.' First of all, my girl is black: she's Jamaican.