Anthony Jeselnik Quotes

I think one of my first jokes - in the black community, there's people who have jokes about skin tone. People like, 'You so black, you purple.' 'You so black, you gotta smile so we can see you at night.'

Race makes things funny. A black guy driving in NASCAR: not funny. A black guy driving a car sponsored by Tide: not funny. A black guy driving a car sponsored by Aunt Jemima: hilarious.

Well who's black and what is a black person?

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

I always wonder if my kids will say they're mixed or black.

My only goal as a comedian was to stomp the life out of the model-minority myth.

I've heard that I've gotten a lighter complexion, as if I've bleached my skin. I think that is so stupid and ludicrous. For those who want to bleach their skin, that's fine. I just didn't bleach mine. I'm a black woman. I don't want to be anything but a black woman.

From 'Chappelle's Show' to 'Tosh.0,' there's so much race comedy. It's overdone.

I've always had an interest in complicating the way that we perceive the black character, whether it's the black academic or scholar or activist or black intellectual.

Most of my jokes are racist - usually about the Irish.

What is blackness? Is it the way you talk? Do you got to say, 'Dey this, dey dat.' Or the way you dress? Or is it the forgiving of certain things? What is black enough?

Funny is not a color. Being black is only good from the time you get from the curtain to the microphone.

It's really interesting when I go into a community where they haven't seen me before because I often get, 'I didn't know you were black.'

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

You don't hear that much about me being a white and singing soul music in England, but I get the feeling that in America it's really a big thing. It's like, 'God, look at the color of her skin.'

I have not seen 'The Lion King.' I don't do black folklore. And I'm black.

What we're trying to do is take these words and soften them. I'm an African-American comic. I use the b-word in my act.

Nobody calls me a racist when I do redneck jokes. Jeff Foxworthy can do as many 'You might be a redneck jokes' as he wants, but I'm telling you as soon as a guy like that does a black joke or something - 'How dare you!' I totally think it's unfair.

I've always thought of myself as an African-American comedian, African-American man, everything.

I never have a problem with being black. I have a problem with the easy association of what that means to some people.

I had talked to my agent a lot over the years about not being interested in stereotypical "black films" [because] I didn't like the way they were representing black people over and over and over again in the same way.

Black comics, they only watch Black comedians. You're a comedian; you're not just a Black comedian. You're a comedian. I try to get that through to everybody.

In the early days of my carer as an actor, I shared what was then the prevailing attitude of Negro performers :;that the content and form of a play or a film scenario was of little importance to us. What mattered was was the opportunity, which came so seldom to our folks ... Later I came to understand that the Negro artist could not view the matter simply in terms of of his individual interests, and that he had a responsibility to his people who rightfully resented the traditional stereotyped portrayals of Negros on stage and screen.

I was unique in that I was a kind of black that white people could accept. I was their daydream. I had the worst kind of acceptance because it was never for how great I was or what I contributed. It was because of the way I looked.

That's the nature of my [stand-up] act: black man with a white baby.