Franchesca Ramsey Quotes

Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.

I asked him if he ever hung out with black guys in high school and he said, 'Well, no. They always had these angry looks on their faces. Who wouldn't look ticked off having to deal with nitwits like him?

There remains a degree of anti-black intellectualism in entertainment. Middle and upper-middle class blacks have often been portrayed as buffoons in popular culture; witness the characters of Carlton Banks on 'The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air' and Braxton P. Hartnabrig on 'The Jamie Foxx Show.'

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.

I was told I wasn't black enough for certain jobs because of the way I speak and carry myself and because I was raised in Europe. It's why I left L.A.

I've turned the annoying questions that white people ask into a career, so I understand that's where I live.

I don't understand why black people feel this undying need to want to be down with white people all the time.

I've been asked far too often, 'Can you be blacker?' I've gotten done with auditions and heard, 'We're not going to go black with this character.'

I'm this generic, ambiguous scapegoat for white people to call me a race traitor and take out their hostility on. And I'm a target for anger and pain about white people from the black community. It's like I am the worst of all these worlds.

There were only ever two black kids at my school. I never considered myself to be 'a black kid'. I was who I was. Which isn't to say things haven't happened to me that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't black.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong.

Black people don't know what white people are talking about when they talk about a Sister Souljah moment. I tell them it's the moment you meet a proud, beautiful black woman you can never forget.

I do remember being teased by my cousins on my mom's side for not being black enough. And then I'd spend the summer with my dad and be sent to all white summer camps where I was 'that black girl.'

Every African-American I know has two faces. There's the face that we have for ourselves and the face we put on for white America for the places we have to get to.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

It's one thing when other African-Americans try to threaten my race card, but when people outside of my ethnicity have the audacity to question how 'down' I am because of the bleak, stereotypical picture pop culture has painted for me as a black woman? Unacceptable.

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.

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

White people are very good at acting like they're not racist. They deserve an Academy Award for that.

As black folks we're always sensitive. As a black person it's always racial.

We have a lot of black Anglo-Saxons. Their skin is black, but their brain is white. When I get real mad at them, I call them 'graham crackers.'

White people are potential humans - they haven't evolved yet.

Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks.

You know why we're stuck with the myth that only black people have soul? Because white people don't let themselves feel things.

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.