Jessica Williams Quotes

I never learned how to be adequately black. I never learned how to be black at all.

It would seem that some black people want to say that when you, as a black, become successful, you cease to be black. That's ridiculous.

With my face paint on, I don't look like a regular black dude.

For me, I've struggled with that when auditioning. Sometimes I get the feedback that I'm not white enough or I'm not black enough, and that can be really frustrating in that sense.

Merely because I was black, it seemed, I was supposed to listen to Hugh Maskela instead of Carole King, just as I was expected to be a radical, not a conservative. I no longer cared to play that game ... The black people I knew came from different places and backgrounds - social, economic, even ethnic - yet the color of our skin was somehow supposed to make us identical in spite of our differences. I didn't buy it. Of course we had all experienced racism in one way or another, but that did not mean we had to think alike

If you're black, you can't just be ordinary. All successful black people are extraordinary.

There were certain expectations that were assumed of me as a young black American 20th-century - then 20th-century artist.

For me, whenever I would see a lot of 'black films,' I didn't feel represented in it. I didn't feel connected to the characters or the situations or the humor.

I had to say to myself, 'I haven't written enough about blackness, yet it's part of my consciousness and my lived experience.' I had to get over that anxiety of 'I haven't done this before.'

I don't fit into the age, race, or class of a bestselling poet.

Growing up I definitely, definitely had a bunch of things of, 'Um, am I black enough?' - and I guess specifically, 'Am I German enough?' Why are we measuring blackness?

Where do I fit in? That's something I think about as an actor, especially as an actor from a minority community.

I'm not a token black guy.

I feel like a lot of black men 'put on' because of what they see and because of what people tell them they have to be.

I don't want to be boxed in or looked at a certain way, as in, 'Yo, he's an Asian rapper.'

I'm conscious of my race and ethnicity in the legislature - it's hard not to be.

I was a black kid in an all-white school, so I had to deal with some of that stress and pressure.

I've already got 10,000 more eyes on me because I am of color and they're going to see what I can do in the top series. That's enough pressure in itself, so I don't need to add extra pressure.

I was playing and having a lot of success, but I also felt a lot of criticism behind it. I didn't know why.

At one point, I bought brown contacts because people told me I wasn't Latin enough to play Latin, and I'm Puerto Rican. I went and bought brown contacts just so I could go in and look more Latino... but that was something that I've dealt with in this business.

There are so many stereotypes of how you have to be as a black man, growing up in the community as a man.

I felt more and more like I was putting on an act - like I was being shoved into this role of 'angry white man in a punk band.'

I didn't always see someone that I could relate to, that would tell me that being Black and gay is okay.

Black boys shouldn't have to feel that being good at sports is the only way to be cool - or to be valued by the world.

I think, all too often, this society has too monolithic a definition of what a black American is.