David Oyelowo Quotes

I had a white senator call me a rag head, and I had an African-American legislator call me a conservative with a tan.

At school, I used to hear, 'You're a half-caste.' They'd laugh at my figure and say, 'Are you a boy or a girl?'

I remember people saying: 'You look funny, your hair is so black, you have a flat nose,' but I didn't think of it being racism, and I still don't. But there was a sense of difference, of being an outsider.

… the imbecile and indolent Mexican race

Gingers get a bad rep. They get teased at school. So we should feel sorry for them.

I had a funny last name, and I didn't look like everybody else, and I got faced with a lot of racism.

I had kids make fun of me because not only was I blonde but also Polish.

People were making fun of redheads before I came along.

Why are some people bullied? Because they are different. How? It doesn't matter.

People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

You see, that's the problem I have with 'you people.'

In England we burnt redheads at the stake, because we thought they were witches. There are still young redheads in Britain getting ripped for having red hair. 'Oy, Ginger!'

An agent said he didn't know what to do with me, I wouldn't be able to play any parts but lesbians and aliens.

If you stay here much longer, you'll all get slitty-eyed

Indians are no goddamned good.

If you think about it, there's not a religious group, there's not a nationalistic group, there's not a tribe, there is no grouping of people to my knowledge, of any consequence, who have not, at one or another time, been the object of hatred, racism, or who has not had people against them just because they were them.

I do not want to name any individual names, but I felt like when I was working in Hollywood, there were some fellow colleagues of mine who didn't even look me in the eyes because I was Asian.

One girl used to call me Brownie and tell me to go back to my own country. At lunch, I'd get a bag of chips from the vending machine and eat it in the storage room so I wouldn't have to see her.

I've had to deal with racism, sexism, rumors, malice, a little bit of everything.

Schoolkids - black and white - would call me Kunta Kinte as a cuss. If ever my hair was particularly messy, if ever I looked scruffy at school, I would be called Kunta Kinte. My first impression was that it was bad to be African and bad to be associated with him.

Kids used to say stuff all the time about how I was different.

I was always different from people. Especially being from Kentucky, I always got made fun of.

The marginalization of African-Americans within their own community based on sexuality is a construct that is more complex than the idea that 'blacks just hate gays.'

I was teased about Indian food and the colour of my skin and why my knees and elbows were dark.

Demonization of people on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or other criteria leads to dehumanization. The notion that some are 'other' is a dangerous and slippery slope.