David Oyelowo Quotes

It really fascinates me what white people are allowed to write about.

People of color grow up steeped in 'white' culture. The reverse is not true. And, no, listening to hip-hop on the way to work does not count as immersion.

'Black film,' unless it's lucky enough or creative enough, or timely enough to build a life of its own, hangs subjacent to 'white film' on Hollywood's financial score board... aided and abetted by the supposition that so-called black film has no foreign market.

All too often, white documentary filmmakers are the ones telling the stories of people of color.

African-Americans are always forced to learn the other culture, but the other culture is not forced to learn ours. I went to acting school at Juilliard, and we learned Shakespeare and Shaw, but we never did the work of a single African-American playwright, not August Wilson or Ntozake Shange or Imir Baraka.

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.

There are still plenty of movie people peddling black stereotypes. I guess Tyler Perry's probably the most massively successful.

I think one of the nicest things that we created as a generation was just the fact that we could say, 'Hey, I don't like white people.'

Reactionary conservatives are smiling through the racial apocalypse. To them, race baiting is a joke, as 'humorist' Rush Limbaugh will tell you when he's calling Mexicans 'stupid.' Or it's a matter of semantics when they claim that Sonia Sotomayor is a 'racialist' which, far as I can tell, is the smooth jazz version of being a racist.

What does it mean to be too black for Hollywood? It's self-explanatory. Hollywood has certain kinds of blacks that they like.

In colleges throughout America, students are taught to have disdain for the white race. I know this sounds incredible, or at least exaggerated. It is neither.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.

When people who are not black are interested in what I do, frankly, I'm always surprised. I don't know if it's my low expectations for white people or what.

Jesus was not born in a manger in central Pennsylvania. He was a man of color. And the fact that we have represented him for centuries literally as a white man speaks to the entire history of white supremacy.

Now we already know that the white supremacist Western scholars are going to object and oppose any evidence that shows an Afrikan influence on Greek civilization, or any other part of Europe. Their basic premise is to give Afrikan people credit for nothing

Why is the world that I see around me mixed, and why is the world I see in movies filled with all white people? Why does it have to be like that?

I think 'Dear White People,' the show, is a tremendous artistic achievement. It's always hinting that there is something beyond the pleading and wokeness, something that the show's more militant characters can't see.

'Dear White People' started a conversation about race. It's such a difficult thing to talk about, especially in America because of our history. I love that you can confront it with humour and with satire.

The funny thing about cinema is, usually when they do a story that has African Americans in it, there always has to be a white guy who's the savior.

I always describe race as the final taboo in American theatre. There's a real reluctance to have that conversation in an open, honest way on the stage.

Why do we always have to see black people in hindsight? Why are the Hollywood movies always historical? What about the contemporary image of black people?

When I was growing up, all these superheroes were white. On some level, you put that out of your mind... but as you get older, you realize it's a very one-sided affair. So I'm very glad to see that these movies are becoming more diversified.

'Get Out,' of course, is the surprise hit movie that Peele wrote and directed about a black man named Chris, who discovers that his white girlfriend's family is running a nasty racist conspiracy.

A movie is a movie is a movie. But it has to have an adjective in front of it if it's not a white guy's movie.

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.