Michael Dyson Quotes

There was a while when I was feeling like, 'Damn, if I'd just been born black, I would not have to go through all this'.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.

It’s no disgrace to be black, but it’s often very inconvenient.

What frustrates me is to see African-Americans behave as though what European-Americans say is worthwhile. It simply isn't. It's just some silly people who can make laws and have the power to enforce them. I'm often amazed at the conversations black people have about themselves. They ought to be having these conversations about white people. It's white people who are flawed and at fault.

To be black and conscious in America is to be in a constant state of rage.

Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.

I am angry about the world's conditions for black people.

I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.

For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.

Blacks essentially play the race card, when necessary as a counter to white privilege.

There are plenty of African-Americans in this country - and I would say this goes right up to the White House - who are not by any means poor, but are very much afflicted by white supremacy.

If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn't there a black exodus?

If you’re born in America with a black skin, you’re born in prison, and the masses of black people in America today are beginning to regard our plight or predicament in this society as one of a prison inmate.

Modern technical civilization does not seem to be as well handled by the black man as by the white man in the United States

We can sugar-coat this any way we want to, but the reality is that there are some people who just don’t want a Black President.

I can't stop thinking about the devaluation of black life, and I find it seeping into everything I write.

Blacks, especially in America, have been raised with a slave mentality - they don't feel that they have the right to speak as loud as possible.

If you asked me why I went to jail, the easiest explanation would be to say, 'Because I'm black.'

We say Black lives matter, but a lot of white folks don't know Black folk.

America isn't made for the black man.

My only crime was being born black - or being born black in Alabama.

The default of our society is the reproduction of racial inequality. I mean, that's what it does; that's what it's been doing for hundreds of years.

There are some aspects of the story of 'Power' that clearly are about race in the sense that any one of us now who's black and was raised in this country was raised with a lie, which is, 'You can never be president.' That's not true.

In America, a black man has to feel like he's God just to make it a little bit when white people can just feel human. They can just be themselves, but for me, I feel we have to start instilling that back into our people. That pride. That black power. That privilege to be alive.