Joe Morton Quotes

There's a lot of potential that goes unused in places like South Central L.A., a lot of brilliant, smart people who just don't have that chance to show it.

The greatest untapped reservoir of raw material in the history of our game is the black race.

There's talent on the streets, kids with ideas who have stories to tell and never get a chance.

You have little representation of young black men in the business sector, so you have children growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods who don't hear discussions at the dinner table about what goes on in business. It's almost as if we have two nations.

It's the most extraordinary and saddest thing, the amount of talent out there not being seen.

Among those people not graduating, there might be a Steve Jobs or Barack Obama. We'll never know.

We did a film called 'Kes,' which is about a lad with a talent that nobody can recognise, or that nobody chose to recognise.

There are plenty of people I've seen and thought that person is funny, or that person is really talented, and they've got something, but maybe the buying public doesn't see the same thing I see, or the stars don't align in the right way for them.

We blacks were the first people embracing Obama, long before the people at expensive fundraisers were supporting him. We gave him his first love, 96 percent of blacks voted for him in 2008. Yet today we are the number one in unemployment, with 16 percent of American blacks out of work.

The most underused, under-appreciated group of people in the world is our youth.

I grew up with a lot of guys, some of them are dead, some of them are this and some of them that, and some of them very, very powerful, bright young men, who became this instead of that simply because of a lack of guidance - that's all.

We have to improve life, not just for those who have the most skills and those who know how to manipulate the system. But also for and with those who often have so much to give but never get the opportunity.

I know a lot of incredibly, profoundly talented, skilled people that aren't given certain opportunities or any opportunities, and that aren't working.

When I look at 55 percent of our black men dropping out of school, how bad off are we going to be when we need some lawyers?

I have a theory that self-made, first-generation actresses don't feel entitled to success.

Not one black man is prominent in Brazil. The Negroes there are still at the bottom.

No one respects a talent that is concealed.

I don't feel that I was often compartmentalized as an African-American actor, yet I am fully aware of the plight that actors, directors and producers of color face in our industry. I choose to focus on being proactive in creating opportunities for myself and others while acknowledging that we are not playing on a level playing field.

There is no such thing as a black middle class.

I think the bottom of the totem pole is African-American women, or women of colour. I think they get the least opportunities in Hollywood.

I hate to say this about the Republican establishment, but their view of Civil Rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club.

Opportunity seems to be color-coded here in America

Black people are taken for granted by the Democratic Party and not even sought after by the Republican Party.

The United States will never be able to pay us [Blacks] all they owe us. They don't have the money.

The white actresses I have known have been allowed to do 10 times more than I shall ever do.