MNEK Quotes

There's so many, 'no, black people aren't like that' barriers in mainstream media.

There are still plenty of movie people peddling black stereotypes. I guess Tyler Perry's probably the most massively successful.

We only put the negative black people on television. We don't put the good, hard-working black people.

Even in reality shows, how they look at black women like they're the monsters - snatching wigs, and weaves and wigs, weaves and wigs, basically, and throwing water and stuff. That's how people see us often, as we are the enemies of things. I wanted to change that because that's not a good example.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

If I were white, I'd get less criticism.

Mainstream media's representation, or its guerrilla decontextualization, of black men's lives in particular can set the stage for erroneous assumptions capable of damaging an individual or a nation.

There will always be that dreadful monster prejudice to do extra battle against because of their color.

Some white people are privileged, some aren't. Some black people are, some aren't. It's strikes me as, by definition, a racist attack in that it's making a generalization - a negative one - based on skin color.

The media's image of us is as animals, and we were never that to me. I knew love from black folks.

I think there's institutionalised racism in this country.

It's something that black men still go through to this day, which is women clutching their purses, hitting the lock button on store, or just basic attitudes. And even as a U.S. congressman, as a black man, it is very, very frustrating, and you build up an internal anger about it that you can't act on.

Let's face it: there's still a certain amount of racism in human beings, so that shows up in Hollywood.

So often, blackness is seen in a negative light.

Having a strong race lens means you understand racism is threaded through and institutionalized in all of our systems and our very perceptions, threaded through how someone looks at you, treats you, thinks about you and your potential.

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

Black women are so very often stereotyped in pop culture.

You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about.

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.

Sometimes the stereotypes that a lot of people have are of black men in jail or who don't take care of their kids, so I think it's always important to have that.

The patterns have become unmistakable and undeniable. ... We have to come to terms with some hard truths about race and justice in America.

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

It's the sad fact of how race still works in our country. We find that over and over again.

I think that one of the positions we have taken around the question of race, is that we already know. We know. We know. We know. And so we don't need to look at it again. And yet everybody is still upset. Everybody is still being driven by their outrageous imagination to the point of killing people because they feel that a black man in front of them is a demon, or the Incredible Hulk.

Had it not been for the race problem early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born.