Lena Horne Quotes

I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian community, and most of my friends had blonde hair and blue eyes. So I was always straightening my hair, wearing colored contacts, and I never tanned, if I could help it.

I went to a predominantly white school, and I was the only black girl. I can remember thinking, 'I don't want to be as dark as I am - I want to be a little fairer.' I didn't want to be me.

Your not black enough. If you are black, all you have to do is wear a dashiki and pump your fist, and you’ll get all the money you want.

It didn't matter as much because I'm a singer, not an actress, but my face is more acceptable in a way now than when I first came on the scene, because I'm part black.

We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real mad at them, I call them 'graham crackers.'

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.

When I was, like, 5 years old, I used to pray to have light skin because I would always hear how pretty that little light skin girl was, or I would hear I was pretty to be dark skin. It wasn't until I was 13 that I really learned to appreciate my skin color and know that I was beautiful.

You never want to be the whitest-sounding black guy in a room.

Black people can be the most conservative, the most discriminating. Especially among ourselves. It wasn't white people who said all black men have to wear baggy jeans.

I'm black and white, so either, sometimes, you're not considered by the breakdown of the script: you're not 'black enough' for this role. Or you're not 'white enough' for this role. Or, like, looking up to people, who do I identify with? And not seeing Barbies that maybe look like me.

Pop culture says that if a black girl is to be taken seriously, she has to assimilate and be as white as possible, to the point of bleaching her hair blonde.

I'm not a token black guy.

I've been on predominantly 'white' shows before, and I had also been on predominantly 'black' shows. I would complain that when I was on a white show, they would only hire me because there was a black character or they needed a black voice. But then I would be mad if they went and hired a white dude in my position.

As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'

People have accused me of bleaching my skin, of getting a nose job. They squint at my mom, like, 'I didn't know Wendy was Asian.' I am black all day, honey pie. I am black and very proud.

A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment

Miss America was always white. All the beautiful brown women in America, beautiful sun tans, beautiful shapes, all types of complexions, but she always was white.And Miss World was always white, and Miss Universe was always white.And the angel fruit cake was the white cake and the devil food cake was the chocolate cake.I said, 'Momma, why is everything white?' I always wondered. And the President lived in the White House.

Why should anyone think a white skin superior in evaluating the qualities of human life? I did not really admire a white skin so much myself. Did I not prefer the brown skin that came with exposure to the sun?

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.

I mean in the community that I grew up in, you know, a very, you know, mixed, almost entirely African Diaspora community, one of the things that we were not ever supposed to say was how much self-hatred and colorism determined and guided what we would call our desire. In other words, what we would consider beautiful.

We knew then what we know now; only exemplary blacks are acceptable.

Being of color in America by no means amounts to a constant barrage of negativity. However, unlike being white, being of color means one's race is a constant issue.

Sometimes I read that I'm not 100 per cent Chinese, because I don't look all that Chinese. That's a strange one - I am Chinese.

It isn't a matter of black is beautiful as much as it is white is not all that's beautiful.

Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.