John Amos Quotes

I really don't want to be a stereotype.

Every character when born is a stereotype.

I had this stereotypical view that black people apart from me probably threw stones and lived in huts.

It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.

I learned to hate my own people and their effeminate ways.

A smart black guy is confronting for most people. But that's on them, not on me.

I love breaking stereotypes.

We fight the stereotypes, but in fighting them, we show them. There are stereotypes for a reason.

The great thing about being a standard-issue, straight white person is you have so much time. Gay people, people of color, we have less time! We have to be a living Learning Annex to everybody. We don't have time to master hobbies like skipping rocks along lakes.

The oppression of any people for opinion's sake has rarely had any other effect than to fix those opinions deeper, and render them more important.

Whether at work, at home or in public, we have been trained to believe that who we are at the core of our being is often unacceptable. As a result, we work diligently to live up to - and sometimes down to - what others have made us out to be, whether or not it is an accurate reflection of who we are.

Racism built me into a person that was set up to be self-destructive.

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.

We're all just trying to fit in and find ourselves, particularly when we're growing up.

But it's a very universal story and the thing is I was reluctant to answer that question because I don't want people latching on to a particular stereotype.

I suspect unconscious bias has been far more of a factor for President Obama than overt racism and will also be a challenge for Hillary Rodham Clinton if she runs for president again.

A lot of girls think they have to choose between being the smart geeky type or the beautiful bimbo.

I found in my experiences that it's not that men are consciously discriminating against promoting women, but I do believe as people we have self-images about what's good.

The enemies of the future are always the very nicest people.

People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks. I should have seen life like that and stay out of trouble, and don't do this and don't do that. But it's hard to live up to some people's expectations.

Fashion is what you adopt when you don't know who you are.

The cardinal rule for any performer is that they should know themselves before they enter the spotlight, and I didn't. I was just Neil and I did what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to get married, so I got married. I was supposed to get a job, so I looked for work.

One ever feels his twoness - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.

The worst moment in my life was when I was seven years old and I discovered that there was a thing such as racism. You don't know you're different until someone lets you know.