Black Community Quotes & Sayings

As discussed in chapter 4, during Jim Crow, racial stigma contributed to racial solidarity in the black community. Racial stigma today, however - that is, the stigma of black criminality - has turned the black community against itself, destroyed networks of mutual support, and created a silence about the new caste system among many of the people most affected by it.58 The implications of this difference are profound. Racial — Michelle Alexander

The Washington black community was able to succeed beyond his wildest dreams. I mean, we had our own newspapers, our own restaurants, our own theaters, our own small shops, our own clubs, our own Masonic lodges. — Ed Smith

The truth is, the liberal policies of the elite class have done little to improve the lot of those who depend so much on them. In America's black communities, where the goodies have been flowing for decades, rather than seeing improvements in terms of upward mobility, we are seeing deteriorating family structure, increases in violent crimes, growing poverty, and growing dependence. Even with such a blatant record of failure, there is slavish devotion to the elite class who continue to promise more goodies in exchange for votes. — Benjamin Carson

He had the face of a floating astronaut who had lost his tether and had only one chance to grab a lifeline or forever drift away into endless black. I knew that feeling, the sense of panic that stretched time, turning seconds into years, and the deep pain that came from being hurt by not one person but many, a gang of bullies that expanded into a neighborhood and then into a community, until you questioned the whole world. — Lissa Price

The reason why rappers are living in - you know, driving in Mercedes-Benz's and living in neighborhoods is because they're selling their music, not just to the black community, but to the white community. — Eric Bolling

As soon as you say that there is a community called, let's say, black Americans, you've immediately created a boundary line - who's in that group, who's outside that group. — Randall Kennedy

I felt like I was being attacked, personally attacked - our community was attacked. Now, I gotta get in their face. I'm proud to be a woman. I'm proud to be a black woman. And I'm proud to be gay. — Wanda Sykes

The black community now in many ways divided itself the way the larger white community divides itself, over class issues. And that race is no longer the bond that it once was. That's one of the prices you pay for progress. — Ed Smith

I am all of my characters, but none of them in particular. I'm an expat in San Miguel de Allende, the community I write about.
My characters are never black and white--I'm interested in shades of gray and the way people rationalize the bad acts they commit. — John Scherber

The black church is dormant, much of the community is dormant. If the black church is leaning toward the right, much of the community is leaning toward the right. If it is leaning in the left wing direction having repercussions. — Cornel West

One of the prices that we pay for integration was the disintegration of the black community. — Ed Smith

But today when people talk about the history of Hopkins's relationship with the black community, the story many of them hold up as the worst offense is that of Henrietta Lacks - a black woman whose body, they say, was exploited by white scientists. — Rebecca Skloot

In the 60s, political correctness became not a guideline for living, but a new set of shackles. A small and vocal part of the Black community lost sight of the fact that unity does not mean unanimity - Black people are not some standardly digestible quantity. In order to work together we do not have to become a mix of indistinguishable particles resembling a vat of homogenized chocolate milk. — Audre Lorde

The empowerment of black women constitutes the empowerment of our entire community. — Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

Testimony is an integral part of the Black religious tradition. It is the occasion where the believer stands before the community of faith in order to give account of the hope that is in him or her. — James Hal Cone

Abortion and racism are evil twins, born of the same lie. Where racism now hides its face in public, abortion is accomplishing the goals of which racism only once dreamed. Together, abortionists are destroying humanity at large and the black community in particular. — Alveda King

The lack of moral character is the number one problem in the black community today — Jesse Lee Peterson

I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up. — Rod Blagojevich

We are Germans. We are Armenians. French, Italian, Russian, American, Asian, African ... many other nationalities. We are Christians, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu. We are black, we are white. We are a community of some many differences, so complex and yet so simple. We do not need to have war! — Michael Jackson

Black women's feelings of responsibility for nurturing the children in their own extended family networks have stimulated a more generalized ethic of care where black women feel accountable to all the black community's children. — Patricia Hill Collins

I think in black communities today we need to encourage a lot more cross racial organizing. — Angela Davis

And yet today, half of all black children are aborted. Far more of the African-American community is being devastated by the policies of today than were being devastated by policies of slavery — Trent Franks

When you say that you are a race man, it means that you embrace the entire black community regardless of the hue, whether somebody is very light and could pass for possibly white or someone is very dark. — Ed Smith

When female stories are muted, we are teaching our kids that their dignity is second class and the historical accounts of their lives [are] less relevant. This lowered value carries over when women face sexual objectification and systemic brutalization from inside and outside the community. — Aurin Squire

The black community has been the foundation of the progressive community in this country for a long time. — Benjamin Todd Jealous

The whole future of America's black community is at risk. One out of every three young black men in Washington, D.C., is under one arm or the other of the criminal justice system. These are the continuing consequences of slavery. — Randall Robinson

America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known. — Pat Buchanan

The first time that I was elected I was called the Judas Iscariot of the black community because I took a stand that was inconsistent of cutting across the grain. — Tim Scott

Simply put, white cops are afraid of black men. We don't talk about it, we pretend it doesn't exist, we claim "color blindness," we say white officers treat black men the same way they treat white men. But that's a lie. In fact, the bigger, the darker the black man the greater the fear. The African-American community knows this. Hell, most whites know it. Yet, even though it's a central, if not the defining ingredient in the makeup of police racism, white cops won't admit it to themselves, or to others. — Norm Stamper

The community certainly included black English professors, like my mother, as well as black doctors and dentists, black mechanics, janitors, and contractors, black cobblers, wedding planners, real estate agents, and undertakers, several black lawyers, and a handful of black Mary Kay salespeople. As a child, however, I knew so many African Americans working in science, math, and engineering that I thought that's just what black folks did. — Margot Lee Shetterly

Friendship cannot become permanent unless it becomes spiritual. There must be fellowship in the deepest things of the soul, community in the highest thoughts, sympathy with the best endeavors. — Hugh Black

In the black community when we think of a couselor or sitting down with a therapist there is that taboo attached to people of being psychotic and crazy. Really it's not it's just sitting down having a conversation. — Gabrielle Dennis

As black people we were out to further our equality. I don't pay attention to the controversial connotations put on by media and the undermining labels they place on us. We pay attention to what our community situation is and what we need. — Chuck D

Anyone still attempting to argue that Ebonics is a problem for black students or that it is somehow connected to a lack of intelligence or lack of desire to achieve is about as useful as a Betamax video cassette player, and it's time for those folks to be retired, be they teachers, administrators, or community leaders, so the rest of us can try to do some real work in the service of equal access for black students and all students. (15) — Adam J. Banks

I'm not one that believes that affirmative action should be based on one's skin color or one's gender, I think it should be done based on one's need, because I think if you are from a poor white community, I think that poor white kid needs a scholarship just as badly as a poor black kid. — J. C. Watts

Homosexuality in hip-hop is an extension of homosexuality in the black community. The black community is very, very conservative when it comes to homosexuality, and I don't mean conservative in the good way, like we're saving money. I mean very intolerant. — Talib Kweli

Is there a war on cops? Is there a war on the Black man? Who is going to call a cease fire? — Bobby F. Kimbrough Jr.

I am thankful for the strong, united response of our university community to the desecration of the James Meredith statue last year, confirming our university values of civility and respect. what it is saying is that the only possible justice for a black in the state of Mississippi is the federal government and if there's anything that we don't need it's that being our only means of expecting justice. — James Meredith

That's how we do it in the black community; we give back to the people who made us who we are. We never forget that. — Snoop Dogg

I don't think Dr. King helped racial harmony, I think he helped racial justice. What I profess to do is help the oppressed and if I cause a load of discomfort in the white community and the black community, that in my opinion means I'm being effective, because I'm not trying to make them comfortable. The job of an activist is to make people tense and cause social change. — Al Sharpton

The war, however, and the rhetoric that accompanied it created an urgency in the black community to call in the long overdue debt their country owed them. "Men of every creed and every race, wherever they lived in the world" were entitled to "Four Freedoms": freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear, Roosevelt said, addressing the American people in his 1941 State of the Union address. — Margot Lee Shetterly

As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white. — James P. Comer

I have Jewish friends. I have Middle Eastern friends. I have Spanish and Italian and British and Scottish and German friends and Austrian friends, and guess what? They all deal with homophobia. It's an earthling epidemic; it's not isolated in the black community. — Jussie Smollett

There's some homophobia within black community, but there's some strong homophobia throughout the whole of American society as well, particularly throughout the South to a degree, whether white or black. And since many of us migrated from the South, that could be a strong connection along those lines. — Otis Moss III

Michael Jordan brings millions of dollars when he shows up in an arena. Since money is how we judge people, he's very valuable. But while that's happening, Rome is burning within the black community. — Jim Brown

Black Consciousness seeks to infuse the black community with a new-found pride in themselves, their efforts, their value systems, their culture, their religion and their outlook to life. — Steven Biko

The Universe is circles within circles, and everything is one circle, and all the circles are connected to each other. Each family is a circle, and those family circles connect together and make a community, and the community makes its circle where it lives on the Earth. It (the community) cares for that part (of the Earth) but cares for it as a circle - which is to say in a cooperative and egalitarian way, where everybody is cared for, and everybody is respected. — Black Elk

When Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Detroit caught fire. Atlanta caught fire. Los Angeles caught fire. Memphis didn't catch fire... [...] We went under curfew, tanks went up and down the streets, all of that's true. [...] ...And... The city fathers chose this opportunity to tear down a black community that represented black history... — James Luther Dickinson

And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don't have our best interests [at heart]. — Jason Whitlock

The breakdown of the black community, in order to maintain slavery, began with the breakdown of the black family. Men and women were not legally allowed to get married because you couldn't have that kind of love. It might get in the way of the economics of slavery. Your children could be taken from you and literally sold down the river. — Kerry Washington

I'm a black man that is proud to be black, and I want to help the black community, but I love all mankind. — Common

Republicans think that the NAACP is the only voice in the black community. It is a voice in the black community. But it's not the only voice. — J. C. Watts

Who are the slumlords in the Black community? The so-called Jews. ... Who is it sucking our blood in the Black community? A white imposter Arab and a white imposter Jew. — Louis Farrakhan

We learned how to envision a different neighborhood, fought for the resources to make it happen, and in March 1968, through the Medical School Agreements, had been given the green light to proceed. All we had to do was make it happen
and ascend to a new level of power in the community. — Junius Williams

Reading about Bordertown was the first time I saw people like me in speculative fiction. Messed-up kids, making messsed-up choices. I couldn't be a magician's apprentice or a pig keeper who might or might not be a king's son or a princess with a prophecy hanging over my head. But I could, maybe, somehow, be part of a community of artists who loved magic. — Holly Black

Someday, sometime, you will be sitting somewhere. A berm overlooking a pond in Vermont. The lip of the Grand Canyon at sunset. A seat on the subway. And something bad will have happened: You will have lost someone you loved, or failed at something at which you badly wanted to succeed. And sitting there, you will fall into the center of yourself. You will look for some core to sustain you. And if you have been perfect all your life and have managed to meet all the expectations of your family, your friends, your community, your society, chances are excellent that there will be a black hole where that core ought to be. I don't want anyone I know to take that terrible chance. And the only way to avoid it is to listen to that small voice inside you that tells you to make mischief, to have fun, to be contrarian, to go another way. George Eliot wrote, 'It is never too late to be what you might have been.' It is never too early, either. — Anna Quindlen

When we excuse homophobia as a matter of opinion instead of treating it as a destructive social illness, we invite fear to explode into violence ... If we are ever to scrape the black rot of prejudice from the heart of our nation, we must stop excusing those who give it expression and even excuse. The next time someone dares to say, "Just because I don't approve of homosexuality doesn't make me a bigot," we must all answer back, "Yes, it does. Not only does it make you a bigot, it makes you a criminal, a danger to me, my family, my community, my city, and my country. — Harvey Fierstein

Many of the Jews who owned the homes, the apartments in the black community, we considered them bloodsuckers because they took from our community and built their community but didn't offer anything back to our community. — Louis Farrakhan

I won't say that writing tamed the Black Beast. It soothed him, though, enough so he agreed simply to occupy a corner of my mind ... Gradually, I redirected my focus and skills towards causes much closer to my own heart: writing and mental health advocacy.
[ ... ]
I felt so good at times that I even wondered, was I still bipolar? In my community work, I saw so many people who were much worse off than I was - deep in their disease in a way I no longer seemed to be. I knew that this often happens to manic-depressives: the brain forgets the ravages of the illness they way a woman forgets the pains of childbirth. You have to, to survive. But it's always a dangerous place to be, because you inevitably start to question the need for medication, therapy, and all the other rigorous stopgaps of sanity so carefully put into place to prevent another episode. — Terri Cheney

In 1990, when we started the Black Community Crusade for Children, we were always talking about all children, but we paid particular attention to children who were not white, who were poor, who were disabled, and who were the most vulnerable.Parents didn't think their children would live to adulthood, and the children didn't think they were going to live to adulthood. That's when we started our first gun-violence campaign. We've lost 17 times more young black people to gun violence since 1968 than we lost in all the lynching in slavery. — Marian Wright Edelman

I think there is unnecessary conflict right now between the vehemently religious and the LGBT community. The extremes of religion I think and the LGBT community have an issue and because a lot of black families in America are more religious, I think that is where the conflict comes into play. — John Amaechi

It's odd to see a black person painting his nails in Miami, especially in the hip-hop community. — SpaceGhostPurrp

Music is the very cement that has not just held the black community together but holds black selves together in a fundamental sense. — Cornel West

In black neighborhoods, everybody appreciated comedy about real life. In the white community, fantasy was funnier. I started looking for the jokes that were equally hilarious across the board, for totally different reasons. — Will Smith

Most rappers are black men. If you're a black man, you owe something to the community that you came from. If you're rapping about the community that you came from, and you're romanticizing parts of it for the entertainment of people who don't look like you, you certainly owe something to the community. — Killer Mike

You're not going to have the police force representing the black and brown community, if they've spent the last 30 years busting every son and daughter and father and mother for every piddling drug offense that they've ever done, thus creating a mistrust in the community. But at the same time, you should be able to talk about abuses of power, and you should be able to talk about police brutality and what, in some cases, is as far as I'm concerned, outright murder and outright loss of justice without the police organization targeting you in the way that they have done me. — Quentin Tarantino

So many people representing different sections of our community are taken down one way or another. The system was designed to break us down. The three-strike rule is to break down a black man. — Snoop Dogg

There's an old saying in the black community that everybody else is protected and served but we are policed, we don't want to be policed. We want to be protected and served as any American citizen. — Benjamin Crump

It's always intrigued me that amidst the group called slaves there were individuals who were extremely able, who were extremely colorful, who were powerful personalities, who by no means fit the usual images of slaves. They were people who, through their personalities and abilities, were very respected in the community where they lived by both black and white. — Alex Haley

Try being a white person who adopts the trappings of black culture while still living in the white community. You will face more hate and ridicule and ostracism than you can even begin to fathom. People are willing to accept you if they see you as an outsider trying to assimilate into their world. But when they see you as a fellow tribe member attempting to disavow the tribe, that is something they will never forgive. That is what happened to me in Eden Park. — Trevor Noah

Blackness is a state of mind, and I identify with the black community. Mainly, because I realized, early on, when I walk into a room, people see a black woman, they don't see a white woman. So out of that reason alone, I identify more with the black community. — Halle Berry

While Muggles have been told that Black is carrying a gun (a kind of metal wand that Muggles use to kill each other), the magical community lives in fear of a massacre like — J.K. Rowling

The black middle-class in America is a prosperous community that is now larger in absolute terms than the black underclass. Does its existence not suggest that economic adversity is the result of failures of individual character rather than the lingering after-effects of racial discrimination and a slave system that ceased to exist well over a century ago? — David Horowitz

In my wildest imagination, I never thought that the fifth of six children born to Helen and Buddy Watts - in a poor black neighborhood, in the poor rural community of Eufaula, Oklahoma - would someday be called Congressman. — J. C. Watts

If we could buy these properties and then invest in the Black community, with our own McDonald's, with our own Kentucky Fried Chickens, it was gonna be a great move. — Solomon Burke

These events are swirling around them. In the white community, people felt like they had no control over their neighborhoods, their destiny. In the black community, centuries of government and economic forces were pushing on them. I went in with a kind of arrogance, maybe, that came from living in a very intellectual family, and I left knowing that there was a lot about the way people lived that I didn't know about. — Sara Paretsky

For longer than I've been involved in the political process, the Republican establishment has claimed to want to provide an alternative for the black community, yet party elite refuse to show up for the game. — J. C. Watts

Any successful black person will have to face suspicion within his or her own community about his or her loyalty to other blacks. — Randall Kennedy

I understand how difficult it can be for an African-American in today's society. In fact, I can relate to black people very well indeed. My ancestors once owned slaves, and it is in my lineage to work closely with the black community. However, just because they were freed over a century ago doesn't mean they can now be freeloaders. They need to be told to work hard, and the incentives just aren't there for them anymore. When I'm president I plan to work closely with the black community to bring a sense of pride and work ethic back into view for them. — Mitt Romney

All my life I've been involved with racial politics. I was a Freedom Rider in the South. I was the author of books on gang violence, I was a community organizer in Newark, New Jersey, and when I spoke to the Black Caucus, congressional and state, I realized they were going all the way for Hillary [Clinton] and so was the Latino caucus in Sacramento and I asked myself this question: "Do I really want to cast my vote against these people who have been central to my life and to the soul of the country?" And so I went with them. Period. — Tom Hayden

We were coming out of the black community with this thing called rap music, which was basically black men yelling at the top of their lungs about what we liked and what we didn't like. It was disturbing to the status quo. It really shook things up. And those in power didn't know what to make of us, but they knew that we had to be silenced, stopped in any way from expressing our outrage. — Chuck D

Earlier in my college career, there was no doubt in my mind that as a member of the Black community I was somehow obligated to this community and would utilize all of my present and future resources to benefit this community first and foremost. — Michelle Obama

It's no surprise I am addicted to all the Republican presidential candidates. They are like crack
in that they will devastate black communities. — Stephen Colbert

I'm lucky because I have so many clashing cultural, racial things going on: black, Jewish, Irish, Portuguese, Cherokee. I can float and be part of any community I want. — Rashida Jones

When a black Jacksonian looks about his home community, he sees a city of over 150,000, of which 40% is Negro, in which there is not a single Negro policeman or policewoman, school crossing guard, or fireman. — Medgar Evers

I was a lost child. I wasn't accepted in the black community because I was Korean, and I wasn't accepted in the Korean community because I was black — Hines Ward

All my playmates were black. I lived in a little community called Archery (ph) in a rural area. And I didn't have any white neighbors at all. So all my kids with whom I fought and wrestled and went fishing and worked in the field and so forth were African-Americans. And that was my life. So when I got to be school age, we had to separate during the daytime, but I always felt like I was in an alien environment when I was in Plains, Georgia with white kids. I was eager to get back where I belonged with my black playmates. — Jimmy Carter

The political philosophy of black nationalism means that the black man should control the politics and the politicians in his own community; no more. — Malcolm X

The move to render the presence of lesbians and gay men invisible in the intricate fabric of Black existence and survival is a move which contributes to fragmentation and weakness in the Black community. — Audre Lorde

If you look at the true essence of the Black Panthers, they were more of a community protection group. — Anthony Mackie

I started out with almost entirely black fans except for a little handful of people in the horror writers' community, and those people really liked horror, you know. They will go to any lengths and read whomever they can find because they like that feeling of being scared. — Tananarive Due

I don't think President Obama has been that revolutionary in reaching out to ethnic communities. President Reagan did a lot for the black community that people don't realize. — Terrence Howard

I'm albino, my family is white, but I was really raised, and taught my important life lessons, by the black community. — Brother Ali

Would movie moguls release a film portraying Adolph Hitler as a great benefactor of the Jews? Hardly. Would they release a movie if the black community found it to be highly disparaging? No way. You better believe these executives would also think long and hard before they released a movie offensive to American Indians, Muslims homosexuals or virtually any affinity group. Yet, to most movie industries a film which offends millions of Christians is fine and dandy. — Donald Wildmon

Not all black women have silently acquiesced in sexism and misogyny within the African-American community. Indeed, many writers, activists, and other women have voiced their opposition and paid the price: they have been ostracized and branded as either man- haters or pawns of white feminists, two of the more predictable modes of disciplining and discrediting black feminists. — Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

I grew up in Columbia, Maryland, a planned community built during the sixties. During the early years, it was very integrated. I grew up being taught by black teachers with black principals and vice principals and, you know, a lot of black friends. We played in mixed groups, and I kind of thought that was how it was. — Michael Chabon

I understand what rappers are talking about. I think rap is less about educating people about the black community and more about making money. — Dennis Rodman

Seven out of 10 black faces you see on television are athletes. The black athlete carries the image of the black community. He carries the cross, in a way, until blacks make inroads in other dimensions. — Arthur Ashe

The establishment wonders why we can't get more of the black vote. It's because it's not doing the things necessary to establish a deeper relationship with the black community. Most black people don't think alike. Most black people just vote alike. — J. C. Watts

It has always been an irony to me that the 'religious right' has come under so much attack for being involved in politics when the black community has been doing it for hundreds of years. The Reverend Jesse Jackson is rarely, if ever, attacked for his involvement in politics. — Kay Coles James