Sterling K. Brown Quotes

Being black in America - especially as I was growing up - the feeling of oppression, the feeling of being outcast, the feeling of not having a voice was part of my life.

While the old spiritual 'Slavery Chain Done Broke at Last' was sung by blacks in the hours following the Appomattox surrender, racism sadly continues to be a crippling national scourge.

If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.

I do not think white America is committed to granting equality to the American Negro. This is a passionately racist country; it will continue to be so in the foreseeable future.

We have this long history of racism in this country, and as it happens, the criminal justice system has been perhaps the most prominent instrument for administering racism. But the racism doesn't actually come from the criminal justice system.

The problem of the Twentieth Century is the problem of the color-line.

The worst disease from which the society of our nation suffers is ... the treatment of the Negro.

Thought the colored man is no longer subject to be bought and sold, he is still surrounded by an adverse sentiment which fetters all his movements. In his downward course he meets with no resistance, but his course upward is resisted at every step of his progress.

If you are black the only roads into the mainland of American life are through subservience, cowardice, and loss of manhood.

There is a cultural disconnect from learning which racism has saddled Black America with.

Every day in America, African Americans are reminded of their race in ways large and small. Every day.

Institutionalized racism is an imaginary enemy.

A black person grows up in this country - and in many places - knowing that racism will be as familiar as salt to the tongue. Also, it can be as dangerous as too much salt. I think that you must struggle for betterment for yourself and for everyone.

In the past, I said I didn't want to speak on certain issues because the second I said one thing about race, then 'Tyron's playing the race card.' But if you really think about it, what is the race card? The race card is that the man held me down, I had unfair circumstances, and I wasn't able to be successful because I was held down.

You know what? As a black person, you see so much racism. Films are no different than the government, politics - it's everywhere. It's not exclusively film. It's infuriating to see it in film. But my being in film changes things.

The history of black America was from slavery, oppression, civil rights, and you felt kind of isolated as an entity in our country.

I cannot imagine what it must feel like to be treated differently because of the color of my skin.

We tend to think of racism as this interpersonal verbal or physical abuse, when in truth, that is only one way that racism manifests itself. The reality of contemporary racism is that it while it is ubiquitous, it is often invisible, subsequently making it more difficult to name and identify.

Goddamnit, look! We live here and they live there. We black and they white. They got things and we ain't. They do things and we can't. It's just like livin' in jail.

The poor black people in it make the black people in Gone With the Wind look like Malcolm X.

When you're white, the sky's the limit. When you're black, the limit's the sky.

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

Slavery has never been abolished from America's way of thinking.

The challenges African-Americans are facing today are rooted in the system of slavery.

Until Lee Elder, the only blacks at the Masters were caddies or waiters. To ask a black man what he feels about the traditions of the Masters is like asking him how he feels about his forefathers who were slaves.