David Harewood Quotes

I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result.

Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

The evil of slavery and colonialism was that these oppressions kept their victims out of history, disconnected them from the evolutionary struggle.

Only a straight white person would have no concept of what visibility is. They've never contended with anything but visibility.

Everybody has told the story of black people in struggle except black people. The black people in the struggle haven't had the means to tell the story historically. There were a million slaves, but you see very few slave narratives. And that is intentional.

While white women and men of color also experience discrimination, all too often their experiences are taken as the only point of departure for all conversations about discrimination. Being front and center in conversations about racism or sexism is a complicated privilege that is often hard to see.

White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or ... and oppression of others.

Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.

I'm not a fan of identity politics.

Vietnamese must be made to feel that they are racial inferiors with no right to national identity.

I can't discriminate? Oh, that's ripe, coming from a straight white man. What's the matter, baby doesn't feel like he belongs? Well why don't you try a place that was set up just for you? Like the world!

Most men today cannot conceive of a freedom that does not involve somebody's slavery.

It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.

If what I read doesn't reflect my life - whether I'm gay or Latino or on welfare - doesn't that really mean that my life is not valuable?

When you're told that as a filmmaker of colour, the stories you want to tell aren't commercial enough, then you start thinking, 'I'm going to tell them anyway.'

Slavery, racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry, subordination, and human rights abuse transform and adapt with the times.

I know how hard it is to be a woman, especially a black woman.

For me, my 'X' replaced the white slave master name of 'Little' which some blue-eyed devil named Little had imposed on my parental forebears.

If a test of civilization be sought, none can be so sure as the condition of that half of society over which the other half has power.

The world today is divided into the free and the enslaved.

To be a slaveholder meant one had to regard the African American as inferior in every way.

Black people have always been used as a buffer in this country between powers to prevent class war.

Africa suffered under European dominance for centuries.

Before passing different laws for different people, I'd relinquish myself unto you as your slave.