Nancy Giles Quotes

I wanted to write about racism and xenophobia in 21st Century England and Ireland, but I wanted to do it in an exciting way so that I could reach more readers. Zombies seemed like a good way to do that.

Noting that Huckleberry Finn was originally both valued and reviled because it shows the reader that the accepted moral code and social hierarchy is not always correct.

I think sports is one of the places where race plays itself out publicly. Although we pretend it doesn't.

Making jokes is about the most wrong and stupid thing a bemused, middle-aged, white heterosexual Anglo Saxon sort of Celt Australian male can do these days.

You can't be a minority in this society without having someone express disapproval about affirmative action.

We live in a world of crisis, of challenge, and... it's in our galleries that we can unpack the civilizations that we're seeing the current manifestations of.

I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society.

In our racist, sexist society, Christmas is the eight hours when we stop killing each other and gratuitous overeating is encouraged so that the starving and other people in the world can die!

Segregation was wrong when it was forced by white people, and I believe it is still wrong when it is requested by black people.

You know it's going to hell when the best rapper out there is white and the best golfer is black.

To me, racism is so played out and corny and stupid, especially in music, where you now have Nelly doing songs with Tim McGraw, on the hit single 'Over and Over.' Anyone who thinks about that just needs to get a life.

Hockey is a sport for white men. Basketball is a sport for black men. Golf is a sport for white men dressed like black pimps.

… the most ordinary Negro is a distinct gentleman, but it takes extraordinary training and opportunity to make the average white man anything but a hog.

There are many humorous things in the world; among them, the white man's notion that he less savage than the other savages.

It's interesting that we assign the label 'political' to art that doesn't just fit a mould of status quo. Is 'Downton Abbey' not political? That's political! Every piece of art offers a perspective on the world. And what is politics if not a perspective on the world? 'Downton Abbey' is about class. It's also about race.

Early on, I was so impressed with Charles Dickens. I grew up in the South, in a little village in Arkansas, and the whites in my town were really mean, and rude. Dickens, I could tell, wouldn't be a man who would curse me out and talk to me rudely.

I always felt the 'X-Men,' in a subtle way, often touched upon the subject of racism and inequality, and I believe that subject has come up in other titles, too. But we would never pound hard on the subject, which must be handled with care and intelligence.

Racism is old, but Peele found a poetic new way of talking about it. He gave us language we didn't know we lacked.

James Brown's life was really a metaphor for our inability to talk about matters like race and class in America.

I'd rather have dinner with Don King than with Mark Furhman. But then, I'm American. I have no perspective.

Racism is over in the 'Star Trek' future, but they found a way to comment on sexism and racism in the present day in such a subversive and smart way, you know?

I think 'Holler If Ya Hear Me' is almost 'A Raisin in the Sun' 50 years later, with just a different 20-year-old voice speaking the words. But it's about access to the American dream and equal lives having equal value in America. It's still holding a mirror up to us so we can see ourselves.

I've always thought that 'Dear White People' should live on as a TV show, so I'll leave it at that.

I am thrilled and proud of Benjamin Watson for speaking up on behalf of innocent black lives, traditionally an unpopular stance in the mainstream media.

The Carrie Mae Weems photograph 'Blue Black Boy,' I thought, was fantastic.