Douglas Wilder Quotes

I felt black. I was as far as I was concerned. And I wanted to be black for lots of reasons. They were better musicians, they were better athletes, they were not uptight about sex, and they knew how to enjoy life better than most people.

Being black is not a matter of pigmentation - being black is a reflection of a mental attitude.

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.

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

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

I'm black, and it's a very important part of what I am. I'm not embarrassed about it.

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.

We're not monolithic. What is blackness? To me, how do you define that?

As a black person, I'm used to going to places in which I might be the only black person that shows up there. This experience has an effect on the way you see yourself in the world and what it means to be black in the world.

I'm black. I've been black all my life, and as far as I know, I'll die black.

I tried to do Kwanzaa with my family and was like, 'This sucks. What am I doing this for?' For me, I felt like I was doing it because I was trying to live up to someone else's idea of what 'black' was.

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

There haven't been enough profound things written about what being black means and what a black character is. Nobody knows.

My grandfather was coloured, my father was Negro, and I am Black.

Learn to love being black.

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.

I'm so black, I leave fingerprints on coal.

I enjoy challenging perspective - challenging ideas of what it means to be a black man.

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?

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

I definitely am not white.

I'm not going to be one of those people who says, 'I'm a showrunner; I'm not a black showrunner.' I'm black when I go to sleep. I'm black when I wake up, period. It doesn't affect my perspective on everything, but at the same time, it's who I am, and I'm proud of it.

I never had a moment of realization about my blackness - I just was. Blackness was a central thread of my experience as a child and as an adolescent, as it is now that I'm an adult.

I don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

There's this responsibility you feel to present a certain thing that kind of respectability politics. I think that became the only accepted way of defining black culture. I started to become too aware of 'How does this look?' instead of 'Who are these characters?'