Michael Emerson Quotes

I do admit that black men love me. I always forget that, and then I come to a black neighborhood and I remember.

Even if it's a white crowd, I tell my jokes for the four black people in the room, not the 100 whites.

The colored man is in the South to stay there. He will not leave it voluntarily and he cannot be driven out. He had no voice in being carried into the South, but he will have a very loud voice in any attempt to put him out.

Faith is the black person's federal reserve system.

The thing about '48 Hrs.' that really isn't thought about much is that's the first film where the black and the white criticize each other.

Blackness is a state of mind, and I identify with the black community. Mainly, because I realized, early on, when I walk into a room, people see a black woman, they don't see a white woman. So out of that reason alone, I identify more with the black community.

Whether 'Avatar' is racist is a matter for debate. Regardless of where you come down on that question, it's undeniable that the film - like alien apartheid flick 'District 9', released earlier this year - is emphatically a fantasy about race.

Mom came from what has been called the poorest place in America - Lake Providence, Louisiana. She was born on the south side of the Mississippi which was mainly African American and even poorer than the rest.

The projects that I end up doing, that I want to be involved with in any way, have always been projects that will be impactful, for the most part, to my people - to black people.

I want to live to help my race.

I play in a league that's 70 percent black and my peers, guys I come to work with, guys I respect who are very socially aware and are intellectual guys, if they identify something that they think is worth putting their reputations on the line, creating controversy, I'm going to listen to those guys.

I think Skeeter even says that when she calls up Miss Stein. "No one asked Mammy how she feels in Gone With The Wind." Mammy wasn't really much of a fleshed-out character. She was just kind of there to take care of Miss Scarlett.

I'm inclined to believe that most Negro leaders, professional Negroes are professional Negroes. Being a Negro is their professional, and being a profe - a leader is their profession. And usually they say exactly what the white man wants - wants to hear them say.

There haven't been fundamental structural changes in America. There's been a very important symbolic change and that is the election of Barack Obama. But the only black people who truly live in a post-racial world in America all live in a very nice house on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

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.

I'm asking for the vote of every single African-American citizen. You're living in poverty. Your schools are no good. You have no jobs.

Jesse Jackson's living depends on the maintenance of an African-American victim culture

The share of Americans who say race relations are bad in this country is the highest it's been in decades, much of it amplified by shootings of African-Americans by police, as we've seen recently in Charlotte and Tulsa.

We have to help African American people that, for the most part, are stuck there, Hispanic American people. We have Hispanic-American people that are in the inner cities and they are living in hell.

'Get Out' takes on the task of exploring race in America, something that hasn't really been done within the genre since 'Night of the Living Dead' 47 years ago.

The Oscars are this Sunday. Host Neil Patrick Harris said he hopes the broadcast will include a 'Kanye moment.' Unfortunately a Kanye moment may not be possible because that would require a black person to be at the Oscars.

If, with the nation watching, three black women at three different levels can't get justice... for this community, you tell me where you're going to get it in our country.

Hillary Clinton's done a terrible job for the African-Americans.

There is not a history of black intellectuals being allied with dominant forces to hold white people in social and cultural subordination for a few centuries. Second, the "our" of black folk has always been far more inclusive that the "our" of white folk. For instance, there would have hardly been a need for "black" churches if "white" churches had meant their "our" for everybody - and not just white folk. But "our" black churches have always been open to all who would join. The same with white society at every level.

I worked at an all-black swimming pool in the east side of Wilmington, I was involved in what the Negroes, I mean, blacks were thinking, what they were feeling.