Erving Goffman Quotes

I did not want to be the gay artist, and I talked to my manager all the time, like, I don't want to lead with that. I didn't want people to look at me like that's all I am.

Paradoxically, by insisting on engaging with Muslims as a separate group, the authorities make many of them feel even more excluded.

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

Wherever I go, people ask: 'What is she? What is she?' There has always been an agenda - they're excluding me or including me in something with that question. It is the first thing agents in Los Angeles ask me. And then I'd hear: 'You're not black enough, you're too black, you're Italian - no, you're Spanish.'

When we label anyone 'bad', we will have more trouble dealing with him than if we could have settled for a lesser label.

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

I don't consider myself a pariah.

People tend to think I'm insane, and I'm really tired of it.

People see me as Andre first. Then they see me as someone who happens to be a Muslim.

I've been labeled all my life.

People look at you, and they've got just the perfect little box for you, the perfect category. Call you a redneck. Call you a hillbilly. Like those were insults.

There's a lot of stigma attached to being in a home. Other parents don't want their kids to play with you because you're naughty or nasty.

I just don't want to give anybody a reason to label me as something I'm not.

I am a marked person, and no one who's unmarked is going to understand that. It's very intimidating. I don't even know what my place is anymore. What's my role in society? Who am I, after everybody has branded me?

I know people think I'm a stupid little street queen out there begging for change cause there's nothing else she knows how to do.

The trouble is that people are all too ready to jump to conclusions about anybody who they think looks a bit strange. They think you must be mentally subnormal.

If someone labels you, it is very hard to shake it off.

By definition, of course, we believe the person with a stigma is not quite human. On this assumption we exercise varieties of discrimination, through which we effectively, if often unthinkingly, reduce his life chances.

The thing with labels is they're not for you, they're for other people. Like labels are just a word for other people to understand you and that's it.

The moment you place a label on someone, you begin to treat him or her accordingly.

At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia.

I am an invisible man. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.

Sometimes, you just get a label and it sticks.

What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

Never, ever, have I felt really accepted in Hollywood.