Michael J. Knowles Quotes

It's barely OK for me to be dressed up as a black guy. But part of me kind of enjoys provoking people.

I have a huge issue with blackface.

Not that long ago - in my parents' lives, in fact - actors in minstrel shows wore blackface to mimic and mock African Americans. These performances were based in contempt and gave people an opportunity to act out their prejudices.

As an African-American, I know all too well the negative thoughts and feelings hatred and bigotry cause.

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored—it is a shadow over all of us.

When I decided to make 'Blackface,' a short film about Black Pete, I had little knowledge of the giant cesspool of hate I was about to dive into. I didn't realize how popular and passionate many white Dutch are about a figure that they connect to fond memories from their childhood.

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

There's a lot of racism still alive and still active.

I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.

I think anybody who is racist is an idiot whether they are black or white.

Can anything good come of a backward way of thinking like judging someone based on skin color? No way.

Racism is essentially natural, it's old fashioned it's an evolutionary phase that we're going through. Ultimately it wont exist.

I'm always annoyed about why black people have to bear the brunt of everybody else's contempt. If we are not totally understanding and smiling, suddenly we're demons.

Let me just say that to imagine racism does not exist is imagination. And to imagine that it does not create its own set of problems is true imagination. So let's not imagine that racism is gone, extinguished, because it's not. We are seeing this in the top levels of the political arena, and we are seeing it very, very plainly.

Barack Obama happens to be the first African-American, and so criticism of him is and always was gonna be racism, and therefore not permitted.

White supremacy is not just a social arrangement: it is a race-based faith.

The minute you understand racism, you're responsible for being racist. It's like eating from the tree of knowledge.

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

I never apologize for the truth. And the truth here is that racists come in many different colors.

Blacks don't square dance. If you see a black person square dancing, it is definitely the seventh sign.

Would it be better if I'd married a Negro woman? Would they treat my child any better? Erect fewer barriers?

The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.