Black Skinned Quotes & Sayings

Chapter 1 JEREMIAH WAS BLACK. HE COULD FEEL IT. THE WAY THE sun pressed down hard and hot on his skin in the summer. Sometimes it felt like he sweated black beads of oil. He felt warm inside his skin, protected. And in Fort Greene, Brooklyn - where everyone seemed to be some shade of black-he felt good walking through the neighborhood. But one step outside. Just one step and somehow the weight of his skin seemed to change. It got heavier. Light-skinned — Jacqueline Woodson

Sometimes, when I'm having a sort-through or a clear-out, I find photos of my youth, and it's a shock to see everything on black and white. I think my granddaughter believes we were actually grey-skinned, with dull hair, always posing in a shadowed landscape. But I remember the town as being almost too bright to look at when I was a girl. I remember the deep blue of the sky and the dark green of the pines cutting through it, the bright red of the local brick houses and the orange carpet of pine needles under our feet. Nowadays - though I'm not sure the sky is still occasionally blue and most of the houses are still there, and the trees still drop their needles - nowadays, the colours seem faded, as if I live in an old photograph. — Emma Healey

He seemed normal again, or as normal as Myrnin ever got, anyway. He'd begged, borrowed, or outright stolen a long, black velvet coat, and under it he was still wearing the poofy white Pierrot pants from his costume, dark boots, and no shirt. Long, black, glossy hair and decadently shining eyes.
Oliver took in the outfit, and raised a brow. "You look like you escaped from a Victorian brothel," he said. "One that . . . specialized."
In answer, Myrnin skinned up the sleeves of the coat. The wound in his back might have healed--or might be healing, anyway--but the burns on his wrists and hands were still livid red, with an unhealthy silver tint to them. "Not the sort of brothel I'd normally frequent, by choice," he said, "though of course you might be more adventurous, Oliver. — Rachel Caine

Does a black person make them an African American? No. There are Hispanics that are very, very dark skinned so the word has lost its meaning, it's not a very concise or proper word to use even today and it wasn't then. — Pam Grier

This will play right into Obama's hands. He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, 'credibility' with the black community
in the both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. It's made-to-order for them. That's why he couldn't wait to get out there, could not wait to get out there. — Rush Limbaugh

Melanin is the black pigment which permits skins to appear other than white (black, brown, red and yellow). Melanin pigment coloration is the norm for the hue-man family. If there are non-white readers who disagree with this presentation of white rejection of the white-skinned self, may I refer you to the literature on the currently developing sun-tanning parlors. — Frances Cress Welsing

The Black was looking out on the open sea; his ears pricked forward, his thin-skinned nostrils quivering, his black mane flowing like windswept flame. Alec could not turn his eyes away; he could not believe such a perfect creature existed. — Walter Farley

How's things, man?" The black man extended his hand for a handshake. Mathematical formulae were jotted on the sleeve of his shirt, right up to the elbow.
"Very good," said Peter. It had never occurred to him before that dark-skinned people didn't have the option of jotting numbers on their skin. You learned something new about human diversity every day. — Michel Faber

Thanks to superior organization, the Egyptian armed forces scored a dual victory, on land and sea, over that second alliance. The fleet of the "Peoples of the North" was entirely destroyed and the invasion route through the Delta was cut. At the same time a third coalition of the same white-skinned Indo-Aryans was being assembled, again in Libya, against the Black Egyptian nation. Yet, this was not a racial conflict in the modern sense. To be sure, the two hostile groups were fully conscious of their ethnic and racial differences, but it was much more a question of the great movement of disinherited peoples of the north toward richer and more advanced countries. Ramses III demolished that third coalition as he had destroyed the first two.... As a result of this third victory over the Indo-Aryans, he took an exceptional number of prisoners. — Cheikh Anta Diop

The twentieth-century scholar G. B. Harrison, believing the woman to have been black-skinned, proposed a prostitute named Lucy Morgan; — Paul Edmondson

There were tens of thousands of pilgrims, from all over the world. They were of all colors, from blue-eyed blondes to black-skinned Africans. But we were all participating in the same ritual, displaying a spirit of unity and brotherhood that my experiences in America had led me to believe never could exist between the white and non-white. — Malcolm X

When I was around four years old I asked my father, "Aba, what color are you?" He replied, "I don't know, a bit white, a bit black." "It's like when one mixes milk with tea," I said. He laughed a lot, but as a boy he had been so self-conscious about being dark-skinned that he went to the fields to get buffalo milk to spread on his face, thinking it would make him lighter. It was only when he met my mother that he became comfortable in his own skin. Being loved by such a beautiful girl gave him confidence. — Malala Yousafzai

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid marveled at the electability of Barack Obama because, unlike previous black candidates, Mr. Obama was 'light-skinned' and lacked a 'Negro dialect.' — Monica Crowley

I'm light skinned, and I used to lean on that because that's something a lot of black people pride themselves on, and it's weird. — Chance The Rapper

I was a young black man, light-skinned enough so that four out of five people who met me, of whatever race, assumed I was white ... I was a homosexual who now knew he could function heterosexually.
And I was a young writer whose early attempts had already gotten him a handful of prizes ...
So, I thought, you are neither black nor white.
You are neither male nor female.
And you are that most ambiguous of citizens, the writer.
There was something at once very satisfying and very sad, placing myself at this pivotal suspension. It seemed, in the park at dawn, a kind of revelation
a kind of center, formed of a play of ambiguities, from which I might move in any direction. — Samuel R. Delany

I saw all races, all colors, blue eyed blonds to black skinned Africans in true brotherhood! In unity! Living as one! Worshiping as one! No segregationists, no liberals; they would not have known how to interpret the meaning of those words — Malcolm X

In the sublime days before 11 September 2001, when the powerful were routinely attacking and terrorising the weak, and those dying were black or brown-skinned non-people living in faraway places such as Zaire and Guatemala, there was no terrorism. When the weak attacked the powerful, spectacularly on 9/11, there was terrorism. — John Pilger

As a boy, I never knew where my mother was from
where she was born, who her parents were. When I asked she'd say, "God made me." When I asked if she was white, she'd say, "I'm light-skinned," and change the subject. She raised twelve black children and sent us all to college and in most cases graduate school. Her children became doctors, professors, chemists, teachers
yet none of us even knew her maiden name until we were grown. It took me fourteen years to unearth her remarkable story
the daughter of an Orthodox Jewish rabbi, she married a black man in 1942
and she revealed it more as a favor to me than out of any desire to revisit her past. Here is her life as she told it to me, and betwixt and between the pages of her life you will find mine as well. — James McBride

I scroll past images every bit as violent and beautiful as Jeb's paintings: luminious, rainbow-skinned creatures with bulbous eyes and sparkly, silken wings who carry knives and swords; hideous, naked hobgoblins in chains who crawl on all fours and have corkscrew tails and cloven feet like pigs; silvery pixielike beings trapped in cages and crying oily black tears. — A.G. Howard

I would love 'Awkward Black Girl' to be on television, with the right team of people who understand and get it. If 'Awkward Black Girl' could make it to HBO starring a dark-skinned black girl, that would be revolutionary. — Issa Rae

Fifteen minutes later, a six foot seven inch, broad, bulky, muscled, bald, glorious, midnight-skinned black man, in a suit like Knight's but with a black shirt, came walking up the steps, — Kristen Ashley

Exceptions were made for Friday episodes of One Life to Live, and, occasionally, for Oprah, who was one of the few black people Helen had any regard for. Perhaps in the past she had been more open-minded, but getting mugged in the foyer of our building convinced her that they were all crooks and sex maniacs. Even the light-skinned ones. — David Sedaris

Don't tell thin women to eat a cheeseburger. Don't tell fat women to put down the fork. Don't tell underweight men to bulk up. Don't tell women with facial hair to wax, don't tell uncircumcised men they're gross, don't tell muscular women to go easy on the dead-lift, don't tell dark-skinned women to bleach their vagina, don't tell black women to relax their hair, don't tell flat-chested women to get breast implants, don't tell "apple-shaped" women what's "flattering," don't tell mothers to hide their stretch marks, and don't tell people whose toes you don't approve of not to wear flip-flops. And so on, etc, etc, in every iteration until the mountains crumble to the sea. Basically, just go ahead and CEASE telling other human beings what they "should" and "shouldn't" do with their bodies unless a) you are their doctor, or b) SOMEBODY GODDAMN ASKED YOU. — Lindy West

I'm a black woman who is from Central Falls, Rhode Island. I'm dark skinned. I'm quirky. I'm shy. I'm strong. I'm guarded. I'm weak at times. I'm sensual. I'm not overtly sexual. I am so many things in so many ways and I will never see myself on screen. And the reason I will never see myself up on screen is because that does not translate with being black. — Viola Davis

Light-skinned black people are seen to be closer to white people. The allegiance to lighter-skinned people has operated in a very destructive way that we have internalized ourselves inside black communities. You look at many of the prominent black people in this society who have been able to do well. Many have been lighter-skinned. — Michael Eric Dyson

In black America there's such a thing as passing, the black people who are light skinned and they will pass for white. — Juan Williams

I was struck that morning, as I would occasionally be struck the entire time I was in India, by the notion that the town was brown-skinned and black-haired, that their facial features approached my own. There was a solidarity, unexpected, unreasoning, that I felt with the people I passed on the street. They were, during those moments, my people, and though I had my difficulties with the subtleties of their language, thought our manners of dress and thought were distinct, though, perhaps, these people that I passed did not regard themselves as bound together in any particular way, at these instants I would disregard such nuance and imagine a profound relationship between us. Later, during stretches more lucid, I'd marvel at this rush of emotion and wonder as to its source. — Sameer Parekh

Someone could cut through the mess in our house and look at it like one might look at rings on a tree or layers of sediment. They'd find the black-and-white hairs of a dog we had when I was six, the acid-washed jeans my mother once wore, the seven blood-soaked pillowcases from the time I skinned my knee. All our family secrets rest in endless piles. — Holly Black

If you threw Elvis and a scarecrow in a blender, topped the whole thing off with Seagram's 7 and pressed dice, you would make my dad. He's got tar black hair and shoulder blades that cut through his undershirt like clipped wings. He looks like a gray-skinned, skinny-rat cowboy and I would be lying if I didn't say that I am, maybe sorta kinda, keep it secret, in love with him.
And you would be, too, you would, if you met him before drink number five or six. Just meet him then. Get lost before things get ugly. — Andrea Portes

My father was a dark-skinned brother, but my mother was a very fair-skinned lady. From what I understand, she was Creole; we think her people originally came from New Orleans. She looked almost like a white woman, which meant she could pass - as folks used to say back then. Her hair was jet-black. She was slim and very attractive. — Ice-T

Whether chocolate or vanilla, or you're somewhere in between,
A cappuccino mocha or a caramel queen,
Rejected by the black, not accepted by the white world,
And this is dedicated to them dark-skinned white girls. — MURS

I bought a brown-skinned glove puppet. He came with a little black briefcase and his hair was parted exactly down the middle. The precision of his parting made me uneasy; somehow it was too human at the exact same time as exposing his status as a nonhuman. — Helen Oyeyemi

Did you see it?" asked Yarvi.
"I had that questionable privilege."
"What do you think?"
"She is wretched. She is all pride and anger. She has too much confidence and too little. She does not know herself." The figure pushed back her hood. A black-skinned old woman with a face lean as famine and hair shaved to gray fuzz. She picked her nose with one long forefinger, carefully examined the results, then flicked them away "The girl is stupid as a stump. Worse. Most stumps have the dignity to rot quietly without causing offense."
"I'm right here," Thorn managed to hiss from her hands and knees.
"Just where the drunk boy put you." The woman flashed a smile at Brand that seemed to have too many teeth. "I like him, though: he is pretty and desperate. My favorite combination. — Joe Abercrombie

Some make their worlds without knowing it. Their universes are just sesame seeds and three-day weekends and dial tones and skinned knees and physics and driftwood and emerald earrings and books dropped in bathtubs and holes in guitars and plastic and empathy and hardwood and heavy water and high black stockings and the history of the Vikings and brass and obsolescence and burnt hair and collapsed souffles and the impossibility of not falling in love in an art museum with the person standing next to you looking at the same painting and all the other things that just happen and are. — Jonathan Safran Foer

So here I am, a white man telling Black children to not give white people the benefit of the doubt. It's not prejudice I'm giving them, it's survival. Don't talk to strangers. Don't trust white folk you don't know. Don't trust cops. The basics. When Black folk don't want to walk right up and be my friend, I don't take it personally, and I don't get defensive. And I'll tell other thin-skinned white people the same thing. It's not personal. It's survival. Get used to it, and quit whining. — Stan Goff

If it was so honorable and glorious to be black, why was it the yellow-skinned people among us had so much prestige? — Zora Neale Hurston

There's competition among women everywhere you go. But back home, we understand that you can look like a variety of things and still be from the same culture. What I'm saying is that I've never felt like I was a light-skinned black woman. Never felt that way because we shared the same culture back home. — Grace Gealey

Far as to say that white-skinned people are actually black-skinned mutants who lost the ability to produce significant amounts of eumelanin. Redheads, with their characteristic milky white skin and freckles, may be a further mutation along the same lines. In order to survive in places with infrequent and weak sunlight, such as in parts of the U.K., they may have evolved in a way that almost completely knocked out their body's ability to produce eumelanin, the brown or black pigment. — Sharon Moalem

Julio was willing to bet that Officer "I've Seen It All" Mac had never seen a horde of black-skinned demons wearing rags and armor and carrying swords and spears, dragging a naked woman and a chubby boy by a rope. No, he was willing to bet his left nut that even officer Mac had never seen such a thing. — Brom

The most important obstacle to speed and ease of assimilation, however, is race. In the nineteenth century, swarthy Jews, "black" Irish, and Italian "guineas" - a not so subtle euphemism borrowed from the African country of Guinea - were all seen as what we today call "people of color." These immigrants terrified lighter-skinned native-born Americans, who accepted the newcomers as "white" only when they - actually, their descendants - began to earn middle-class incomes. Of course, skin color does not affect an immigrant's ability to absorb American culture. But color can play a large part in hindering economic and social assimilation: today's black newcomers, from the Caribbean and elsewhere, are often treated as part of the African-American population, with all the associated disadvantages. — Tamar Jacoby

Here it comes," Niten said. The whites of his eyes,his teeth and his tongue had turned blue.
"Ready," Prometheus said.
Nicholas Flamel touched the green scarab he now wore around his neck and felt it grow warm in his hand.The spell was a simple one,something he had performed a thousand times before, though never on such a large scale.
A red-skinned head broke the surface of the water ... followed by a second ... and a third ... and then a fourth head,black and twice as large as the others appeared. Suddenly there were seven heads streaking toward them.
"Let's hope no one if filming this," Niten murmered.
"No one would believe it anyway." Prometheus grinned. "Seven-headed monsters simply do not exist.If anyone saw it,they'd say it was Photoshopped. — Michael Scott

A person whose skin is metallic can no more have its reproduction restricted than a black-skinned person. Regarding life as a form of machinery and intelligent machines as people without our environmental limitations is essential in understanding FAP, the Final Anthropic Principle, which deals with evolution in the far future. — Frank Tipler

I wanted to touch on how we look on each other. Good hair, light skin, you must be smart; if you're black, you're dark-skinned, you're ugly. That really happens. This is something that started with slavery, when they divided the house, and it's still a part of today's society and things that we battle with. — Rapsody

My mother was a woman. A black woman. A single mother. Raising two kids on her own. So she was dark skinned. Had short hair. Got no love from nobody except for a group called the Black Panthers. So that's why she was a Black Panther. — Tupac Shakur

In Collegium it had been the fashion, while he had been resident there, to paint death as a grey-skinned, balding Beetle man in plain robes, perhaps with a doctor's bag but more often an artificer's toolstrip and apron, like the man who came in, at the close of the day, to put out the lamps and still the workings of the machines.
Among his own people, death was a swift insect, gleaming black, its wings a blur - too fast to be outrun and too agile to be avoided, the unplumbed void in which he swam was but the depth of a single facet of its darkly jewelled eyes. — Adrian Tchaikovsky

(Harry Reid) was wowed by Obama's oratorical gifts and believed that the country was ready to embrace a black presidential candidate, especially one such as Obama - a 'light-skinned' African American 'with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one. — Harry Reid