August Wilson Quotes

I think it's impossible to be a young black male from the South, born to an era I was born in, and not have a clear sense of what race really means in the country.

I spent my life navigating systems built upon me - a black child in America - not making it out.

If you're a black person in America, it's really hard to avoid being black. And what I mean is that the reality of your cultural history, regardless of whether or not you talk about it, it's there.

I was fortunate to be raised in Seattle, which was amazing, but that doesn't take away from the fact I was still a black kid growing up in America.

So for a long time I closed my eyes to the possibility of America having a white voice.

Blacks who lack a proper killing rage are merely victims.

Sometimes I wonder if I got lulled into not wanting things because I grew up black in this country.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

It's very hard to be black in this country and hate America. It's really hard to live like that. I would actually argue it's impossible to fully see yourself.

It's more dangerous to be black in America...If you are a normal white American, the truth is you don't understand being black in America, and you instinctively underestimate the level of discrimination and the level of additional risk in a way that you have to be corrected.

If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn't there a black exodus?

The American economy, the American society, the American unconscious are all racist.

I think we have come to a place in black America, sadly from my point of view, where we have once again begun to rely on our history of victimization as our primary source of power to wield within society.

The black experience for me has been very interesting. Some days, I wake up, and I feel really black. Some days, I'm like, 'This is me. I'm black. Black Lives Matter. Black pride. Look at my cocoa skin.' I just feel it's my being.

As a black man in America, I have lived the truth.

There's an anecdote that's really been sticking with me: To be a Black man in America, you are born into the horror genre. You are not safe. Period. Full stop.

Every black man in Chicago walks through the world differently, and I think what young black boys do is observe, and that's what gives them their road map.

My family is Jamaican. We were just the slaves that were dropped off over there. And at the end of the day when you live and exist as a Black person in America, at least to white society, to a certain extent, no one is asking where you're from and where you were born.

Throughout every presidency since the heist of our country from indigenous peoples, the black American experience has been exceptional in its discomfort. And no chief executive of this great nation has, in earnest, developed a unique plan to remedy that discomfort.

I love being black in America, and especially being black in Hollywood.

Black people cannot look to government to solve their problems.

Speaking as a black person, welfare is the worst thing that's ever happened to us.

Every day of my life I walk with the idea that I am black, no matter how successful I am. And our success is tempered by that; you're successful in this way given the fact you are black, and most blacks don't get to that point.

I'm a black man in America, so I'm going to be misunderstood.

White Americans believe we've made more progress since the end of slavery in 1865 than do black Americans for whom '12 Years a Slave' documents a collective memory, passed down in the genes and by the lore of generations.