African American Narratives Quotes

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.

I thought that, as a black audience member, I would like to see something that reflected an experience that's not normally exhibited in documentaries, or is so much about black people as victims in this country, and black people not taking control of their own lives and their own destinies.

I just want to tell black stories.

I write for myself, and my goal is bringing that world and that experience of black Americans to life on the stage and giving it a space there.

We have far more options for black Americans to tell stories outside of slavery, but whenever it comes to slavery, it's an uncomfortable subject. Why? Because it's the most unresolved subject in American history.

Every ethnic group has a mythology... Until 'Roots'... there was nothing in the popular culture to refute the paragraph in elementary school history class that said, 'Slaves picked the cotton, were happy and life wasn't so bad.'

I don't think there's enough breadth to the stories told about African-Americans.

I recently read a collection of stories called 'Boondock Kollage,' by Regina Bradley. The stories follow multiple characters through the South, through the past and present. I loved reading that book: the first time I read the opening story, I was breathless and incoherent.

I'm a sponge for historical images of black people and black history on film.

I don't think people have been able to deal with the fact that African American filmmakers can make movies about life and relationships.

My goal is to broaden and deepen the range of African-American characters on television, so I always try to show human beings.

I think the blues is the best literature that we as blacks have created since we've been here. I call it our 'sacred book.' What I've attempted to do is to mine that field, to mine those cultural ideas and attitudes and give them to my characters.

It did occur to me that certainly African-Americans are not underserved in picture books, but those books are almost all about specifically black experiences.