Sanaa Lathan Quotes

My first serious girlfriend, when I was 16, was Mormon. I went to her house for 'family home evening,' and I was like, 'Why aren't you people ignoring each other and watching television?'

It was a good script [Something New]. We have not seen an interracial issue dealt with from a black woman and white man's perspective in this way. And, usually, it's a black man, white woman. I loved the fact that it wasn't about the couple being against the world or the couple against the family. I loved the fact that it was her dealing with her own prejudices that came up, her own guilt, her own shame and embarrassment about what her peers thought.

You know what they say: 'Once you go black, your parents don't talk to you anymore.

I remember after I dated this white man, nobody said anything but there was a couple of men in my family that joked after that. 'Oh yeah, we had a party when y'all broke up. Hee hee hee.' And, you know, they laughed, and it was like light and a joke. But, you know, that's real. That was real and they let me know. And, it's almost acceptable within our culture to be prejudiced toward whites because of our history. This country is loaded with racism .

I read so much stuff that black women say, especially about my relationship. 'Oh, he left his black wife to go be with some exotic chick.' First of all, my girl is black: she's Jamaican.

It is truly not fun to be the family that sticks out in an all-white community. On the other side, I have five brothers and sisters; we all look exactly the same, and we're very, very tight. The lessons about race were not pleasant, but there are things that I loved about my childhood.

The fact that hardly anyone is ever prepared to admit to racist behaviour is perhaps a sort of strength: it speaks to the fact that racism is socially inadmissible.

Sometimes I even feel funny to say I'm in a biracial marriage because people are like, 'Oh, he's Asian?' The subtext is, 'Who cares? You didn't marry a black person.'

I didn't like England. I couldn't take the look of the place or the style of friendship. I need more intimacy from people than is considered okay there, and I felt that my personality and my enthusiasms weren't understood. I had to put a big lid on myself.

Australia is much more liberal in accepting de facto relationships than the U.S.

I don't imagine my parents are too excited about my kind of life. The surrounding weirdness bothers them. Still, I think they're pretty good. Their lives are based on what their friends think, just like ours are.

More and more couples are having this negotiation or discussion, but I'm still amazed at the number who aren't and where the cultural norm sort of kicks in and they just assume that mom's got to be the one who stays home, not dad.

I was one of the only people of color at my grade school and also my high school. It's weird recollecting on my childhood, I think, because my brothers are all white. We all share the same father but different mothers. I guess I kind of associated white, but I was occasionally reminded in a really negative way that I wasn't.

Race is everything.

A white face goes with a white mind. Occasionally a black face goes with a white mind. Very seldom a white face will have a black mind.

Any red woman who is living with a white man must return to her people, and must leave her children with the husband, so that all nations will be pure in their blood

Being offended is the natural consequence of leaving one’s home. I do not like after- shave lotion, adults who roller-skate, children who speak French, or anyone who is unduly tan. I do not, however, go around enacting legislation …

When my mother left home, her family sat shivah for her, more because my father was not Jewish than because he was black.

I had no expectations of white people at all.

The Huxtables laughed and bonded and debated and lip-synced. They were glamorous and simple and extraordinarily human. And affluent. And educated. And so many different kinds of black. You'd think that all of that would make them the Howard University of African-American family life. But white people wanted to matriculate, too.

Being able to live without having to be defined by your skin color is the hallmark of privilege.

I don't have children. I don't know how I would feel if my child brought home a different race boyfriend or girlfriend. I don't think I would have any issue with it. But I have no litmus test for that.

Some people assume I'm a spoilt trust fund kid who's never had to work for anything, while others think the best of me because of the good experience they had with my grandfather. It's difficult to digest the fact that they may never see me for who I am.

My parents were 30 years older than I was, and my parents had my brother and I ten years apart. My parents grew up in segregation, and they both lived in all-black neighborhoods and grew up with large black families. I didn't have any of that, and I didn't understand feeling so differently and being treated so differently.

I am a first-generation Chinese-American; my husband is white. We have a little boy, so I think a lot about what it's like when people from different cultures and backgrounds start families, and how the world sees them. Most of my friends are in interracial relationships, and I just wonder what the world is going to look like for their children.