Racial Authenticity Quotes

The black man should seek to be, and he should be encouraged to be, the best possible black man and not the best possible imitation of a white man.

Our leader will not be a white man with a Black heart, nor a Black man with a white heart, but a Black man with a Black heart.

As long as you say I'm the guy who's real about it, I have no problem being the person who people look to to talk about race.

Foreman had annihilated every single one of his opponents to that point, but here was Ali, going to Africa, selling himself as the 'real deal' black man.

Question: Does it frost Jackson, Jesse Jackson, that someone like Obama, who fits the stereotype blacks once labeled as an Oreo -- a black on the outside, a white on the inside -- that an Oreo should be the beneficiary of the long civil rights struggle which Jesse Jackson spent his lifetime fighting for?

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.

One of the reasons I paint black people is because I am a black person.

All of us black comedians are trying to be mainstream, but you don't want to lose the edge.

As would-be songwriters, our interest was in black music and black music only. We wanted to write songs for black voices.

Rachel Dolezal stepped down from her position as president of an NAACP chapter after it was revealed that she was a white woman pretending to be black. Now her brother says he knew about it but she asked him not to blow her cover. Unfortunately, her cover had already been blown by God when he made her a blond-haired, blue-eyed white lady.

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?

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?

People don't want rap to be anything other than it is. But genres expand. My contributions, no matter how they sound, will always be rap, because they'll always be black.

You can usually tell when people aren't being authentic, but that goes for every artist, not just white artists.

Janis Joplin sings the blues as hard as any black person.

Our vulnerability is that both blacks and whites can use our impossible racial authenticity against us. Both races can throw up our mixed background to challenge our authority to speak.

When the Negro learns what manner of man he is spiritually, he will wake up all over. He will stop playing white even on the stage. He will rise in the majesty of his own soul.

I give a speech to the black freshmen at Harvard each year, and I say, 'You can like Mozart and ice hockey...' - and then I used to say 'golf,' but Tiger took over golf! - 'and Picasso and still be as black as the ace of spades.'

There's always been a quiet conversation and joke that if you're not hard, if you're not from impoverished neighborhoods, if you're not certain constructs of a black stereotype, then you not black.

I was never a white guy pretending to be black. Not once, ever, did it occur to me that I was being phony or fraudulent or fake. Quite the opposite - I always believed I was living the truest form of my self.

I've had some Democrat African-American leaders tell me they're really not all that comfortable with Obama as the lead at the MLK festivities 'cause he's not down for the struggle. He does not have that in his roots.

There was always a struggle with being Asian and not being Asian enough. It's going to be down to me to own my race.

Blacks are tired of seeing whites saying, 'I understand you.' You need a black to direct a black film.

I wanted Luke Cage to very much be an African American superhero rather than a superhero that happens to be black. I felt it was important to give him that cultural grounding but also show that it doesn't make him an obtuse or one-sided character.

No black person married to a white person can speak for me!