Big Narstie Quotes

The norm is white, apparently, in the view of people who see things in that way. For them, the only reason you would introduce a black character is to introduce this kind of abnormality. Usually, it's because you're telling a story about racism or at least about race.

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.

Black people, we are not this monolithic group, you know?

Children will go with any story as long as it's good, but white adults sometimes think that if a black child's on the cover, it is perhaps not for them.

I was the only Black person on the set. It was unusual for me to be in a circumstance in which every move I made was tantamount to representation of 18 million people.

I have lots of hopes for black actors in general, whether they be on TV or on stage or in movies, and that is that we move beyond the tokenism of what it means to be black in a particular set of circumstances.

I'm used to being the only black guy. I've seriously walked onstage, looked out in the audience, 15,000 people - and I'm the only one in the place. It's no big deal. My whole career's been like that.

I know I'm a black actor, but really, I'm an actor who happens to be black.

I'm tired of cookie-cutter monolithic representation of black folks.

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.

My concerns have always been to do the best job I can. But I am conscious that I'm a black manager and I am conscious that there is a profile that goes with that.

I played on many a team where I was the only black girl.

Unfortunately, I don't know many black people.

I think, all too often, this society has too monolithic a definition of what a black American is.

When I signed for Spurs, I was the only black player in the team.

Merely because I was black, it seemed, I was supposed to listen to Hugh Maskela instead of Carole King, just as I was expected to be a radical, not a conservative. I no longer cared to play that game ... The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds - social, economic, even ethnic - yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but that did not mean we had to think alike

I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.

Well who's black and what is a black person?

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.

In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero.

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

The black characters on TV are the sidekicks, or they're insignificant. You could put all the black sidekicks on one show, and it would be the most boring, one-dimensional show ever. Even look at the black women on 'Community' and 'Parks and Recreation' - they are the archetype of the large black women on television. Snide and sassy.

The perception of linked fate and that feeling of being always on the spot as a representative of the race, at least in mixed company, are features of African American life that predate affirmative action and arise outside of its presence.

One of the things I have an allergic reaction to playing, especially as a black actor, is the mandatory kind of best friend/cop/detective type. You will never see me in that movie.