Shaun King Quotes

I never really had to put much thought into my race, and neither did anybody else. I knew I was black. I knew there was a history that accompanied my skin color, and my parents taught me to be proud of it. End of story.

Blackness better defines who I am philosophically and socially than whiteness does.

I definitely am not white.

Nothing about being white describes who I am.

What I really hoped to do with my work was to at least be able to define my relationship to race.

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

When I come out of the box, I don't come out of the box as racial.

I don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

I believe that we have to be so race-conscious in this day and age.

Sure, I look like a white man. But my heart is as black as anyone's here.

On the one hand, there is no reason that a black person needs to live a portion of his or her life being concerned about the people of color around him. On the other hand, if you don't you're crazy.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

I've never been one to carry race on my sleeve, and I've never been one to really use my race.

If half-black Barack Obama had decided years ago to call himself white - which his genes certainly entitled him to do - his story would have carried very different meaning. If millions of part-black people had followed him into whiteness, then the N.A.A.C.P. would be in true crisis.

No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything.

I like to explore different ideas of race, how the concept of race has evolved in the country. It's one thing I enjoy talking about, but I don't feel compelled to talk about it.

By the time I reached middle school, I fully identified myself not even as biracial but just as black.

To never think about race means that it doesn't really shape your life, or more specifically, the race that you have is not a burden to you.

White people have basically been encouraged for most of recent history in America to think of themselves as outside of race. White people do have race. They need to understand how their race has been constructed as artificially as everybody else's.

As a black person, I'm used to going to places in which I might be the only black person that shows up there. This experience has an effect on the way you see yourself in the world and what it means to be black in the world.

I'm black. I've been black all my life, and as far as I know, I'll die black.

I identify as black.

I don't think that the "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.

Well who's black and what is a black person?

The less I talk about being black, the better.