Janet Hubert Quotes

The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people - to black people.

AI don't make a big thing out of my race. If you try to preach, people give you a little sympathy and then they want to get out of the way. So you don't preach; you tell the story.

The black community now in many ways divided itself the way the larger white community divides itself, over class issues. And that race is no longer the bond that it once was. That's one of the prices you pay for progress.

When we sit and think about what the world needs to looks like in order for black lives to actually matter, there is a debate: What is going to make our communities safe? How do we deal with harm? How do we solve problems that come up in our communities?

I want to see us push for economical and educational advancement in communities of color and low-income communities, and I want to see our relationships between our communities and our law enforcement be advanced.

When you see Major League Baseball putting academies in other countries, obviously that throws up a red flag. You wonder why they ain't going up in our neighborhood. Bottom line, what I see, I talk about... I see it over and over. If anybody can show me I'm wrong, then show me.

We must recognize that all the civil rights laws in the world are not going to solve the problem of minority underachievement. Ultimately, blacks and Hispanics are going to have to see that their solution is largely in their own hands.

There's sort of a persistent misperception that talking about race is black folk's burden. Ultimately, only men can end sexism, and only white people can end racism.

You can't delete racism. It's like a cigarette. You can't stop smoking if you don't want to, and you can't stop racism if people don't want to. But I'll do everything I can to help.

The coffers are full of money and equipment for the Ferguson Police and the Missouri National Guard to put down a potential uprising, but no money for actually uplifting the people of Ferguson, St. Louis, Missouri and around the nation.

So black people all across this country are uniting. They must unite, and they must organize themselves.

We need to take responsibility and educate people. That's why black folks don't like me. I always say it's our responsibility to make safe neighborhoods. It's our job to get them cleaned up.

I know black people love the idea that we finally have a beautiful, good-looking black president. But if he is doing awful things to us, we should wake up.

Just because a black man is running the RNC doesn't mean black folks are going to, 'Oh, OK, I will be a Republican.' Just as with the election of President Obama. All the problems and concerns that are very important to African Americans don't get solved overnight.

How did we suddenly become entranced with gangster culture? I saw it this morning on campus. When did the black community say we should all look like criminals?

Well of course there's been a great deal of progress over the last 40 years. We don't have laws that segregate black people within the society any longer.

As for my support for Obama, remember that I was brought up in Washington. It was an all-black city when I was a kid. And I've always been very pro-African-American - or whatever phrase we now use.

I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.

If Barack Obama now, or some black person in the future, should become president, neither Jesse Jackson nor Al Sharpton would be out of a job. A black president can't end black misery; a black president can't be a civil rights leader or primarily a crusader for racial justice.

I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.

The fact is that racism, despite all the doomsayers, has diminished.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.

I don't think we should stop emphasizing race because I think, you know, race is still very, very important, and we have to recognize that and continue to introduce programs to address racial inequities. But we have to widen our vision and also address the growing problems of economic class.

White society will not listen to preaching. They will not listen to their liberals. Liberalism has not grown within white society, and we blacks cannot stand idly by watching the situation. We can only generate a response from white society when we, as blacks, speak with a black voice and say what we want. Now has come the time when we, as blacks, must articulate what we want, and put it across to the white man, and from a position of strength.

A race-transcendent politics is most likely to succeed when the white community takes responsibility for overcoming its racism, not when the black community decides to forget it.