Black Stereotypes Quotes & Sayings

Kools and Newports were for black people and lower-class whites. Camels were for procrastinators, those who wrote bad poetry, and those who put off writing bad poetry. Merits were for sex addicts, Salems were for alcoholics, and Mores were for people who considered themselves to be outrageous but really weren't. — David Sedaris

We put stereotypes on ourselves. Everybody does that. But I think it's just a little harder for black kids to just be who they are. — Donald Glover

But even more important, I think hip-hop has bridged the culture gap. It brings white kids together with Black kids, brown kids with yellow kids. They all have something in common that they love. It gets past the stereotypes and people hating each other because of those stereotypes. People — Jeff Chang

One night, I was out driving with a few friends of mine when the police pulled us over. We were told we fit the description of someone who had committed a robbery or stolen a car, though I don't really know what kind of description that could have been: three black kids in a Hyundai blasting U2's Joshua Tree on their way back from Bible study? — Ahmir Questlove Thompson

First, you have stereotypes, and that will be the black drug dealer, the east Asian kung fu master, the Middle Eastern terrorist in 'True Lies.' Then you have stuff that takes place on culturally specific terrain, that engages with it, but actually subverts assumptions. 'Smashes' stereotypes. That's where I've come into the game. — Riz Ahmed

Only Aviva's long habit of taking the temperature of her own racism, of her biases and stereotypes about young black males (or about the iron-hard perdurance of their grandmothers) enabled Aviva to set aside, for the time being, her gut reaction - the boy was trouble - and admire Titus's stillness. — Michael Chabon

Did you seriously just stamp your foot? I thought girls only did that on TV. — Stephenie Meyer

I dug up some old John Buscema 'Conan' comics. Man, when Alfredo Alcala was inking, that was some of the most beautiful black and white comic art ever published. The stories are good, too, though early '70s comics based on Conan is a festival of sexist, racist stereotypes. — Ted Naifeh

Our society is driven today by so much ethnic discord. We have Black Lives Matter, which I praise and celebrate. We have the demagogues stereotyping Muslims and resurrecting racist stereotypes they used to visit on us. The larger goal is to show that we are all the same, we all come from Africa, and we all have the same larger family tree. It's about the fundamental unity of the human community. — Henry Louis Gates

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in! — Colin Quinn

Stereotypes wouldn't be so bad if black people were nicer, in general. — Anthony Jeselnik

I think you can be politically incorrect, but there's some responsibility with that. You've got to make sure that you are not condoning or bolstering any racial or other stereotypes. You've got to be free to make jokes, but just make sure ... you don't want to go and black face somewhere to just prove a point. If it's insulting and offensive just for the sake of it that's problematic. — Sacha Baron Cohen

Black males who refuse categorization are rare, for the price of visibility in the contemporary world of white supremacy is that black identity be defined in relation to the stereotype whether by embodying it or seeking to be other than it ... Negative stereotypes about the nature of black masculinity continue to overdetermine the identities black males are allowed to fashion for themselves. — Bell Hooks

She trained the girls in her Girl Scout troop to believe that they could be anything, and she went to lengths to prevent negative stereotypes of their race from shaping their internal views of themselves and other Negroes. It was difficult enough to rise above the silent reminders of Colored signs on the bathroom doors and cafeteria tables. But to be confronted with the prejudice so blatantly, there in that temple to intellectual excellence and rational thought, by something so mundane, so ridiculous, so universal as having to go to the bathroom...In the moment when the white women laughed at her, Mary had been demoted from professional mathematician to a second-class human being, reminded that she was a black girl whose piss wasn't good enough for the white pot. — Margot Lee Shetterly

I keep my chin tucked in, eyes on the ground, the same stance I have when I pass by the guys from my neighborhood who laugh and call me Urkel because I wear a big backpack and don't hang out on the street all night smoking Kool XLs--and by the way, we need a new black nerd archetype; also, when are these wannabe gangstas watching reruns of Family Matters? — Una LaMarche

Any time you stop looking at evil as a black and white thing, it's helpful. So the fact that there won't be any obligatory Islamic terrorist stereotypes in movies any more, that'd be helpful. — John Cusack

...there is a predator-like mental scan that black women have to do before speaking, and even after we've done risk assessment, things can still go astray. — Phoebe Robinson

I think a lot of times stereotypes come when there are disconnected white writers who maybe have two or three black friends, and they write black characters, and they put them in situations that are ridiculous. — Dorian Missick

Black Lesbians are not a threat to the Black family. Many of us have families of our own. We are not white, and we are not a disease. We are women who love women. This does not mean we are going to assault your daughters in an alley on Nostrand Avenue. It does not mean we only think about sex, any more than you only think about sex. Even if you do believe any of these stereotypes about Black Lesbians, begin to practice acting like you don't believe them. — Audre Lorde

When you find yourself judging, yourself or others, move on to something else. It's a hallmark symptom of mindlessness to be constantly classifying our experiences, including how we experience other people, into simple black-and-white categories. When we do this we miss out on all the rich detail of life. And we act on prejudices and stereotypes. If you learn to stop judging, you will start to undermine your most ingrained paradigms. — Anonymous

To prevent enabling oppression, we demand that black people be twice as good. To prevent verifying stereotypes, we pledge to never eat a slice a watermelon in front of white people. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Paul Robeson was an athlete, Rutgers valedictorian, lawyer, writer, actor in movies and plays, great voice - a black male doing it all, back when some people thought he shouldn't. One reason I do all the things I do is to break stereotypes that people can only do certain things. — Dhani Jones

When the students were asked to identify their race on a pretest questionnaire, that simple act was sufficient to prime them with all the negative stereotypes associated with African Americans and academic achievement - and If a white student from a prestigious private high school gets a higher SAT score than a black student from an inner-city school, is it because she's truly a better student, or is it because to be white and to attend a prestigious high school is to be constantly primed with the idea of "smart"? — Malcolm Gladwell

White is not always light and black is not always dark. — Habeeb Akande

If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face, white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere, I'm walking back to the other side of the street, and the list goes on of stereotypes that we all live up to and are fearful of. — Mark Cuban

Sometimes the stereotypes that a lot of people have are of black men in jail or who don't take care of their kids, so I think it's always important to have that. — Morris Chestnut

As a result of this "racism smog," many of our children have internalized all of the negative stereotypes inherent in our society's views of black people. A student teacher at Southern University told me that she didn't know what to say when an African American eighth-grade boy came up to her and said, "They made us the slaves because we were dumb, right, Ms. Summers?" Working with a middle schooler on her math, a tutor was admonished, "Why you trying to teach me to multiply, Ms. L.? Black people don't multiply; black people just add and subtract. White people multiply. — Lisa Delpit

Where are the exhortations for children to reject the self-defeating stereotypes that reduce black people to violent, oversexed 'gangstas,' minstrel show comedians and mindless athletes? — Juan Williams

All the myths and stereotypes used to characterize black womanhood have their roots in negative anti-woman mythology. Yet they form the basis of most critical inquiry into the nature of black female experience. Many people have difficulty appreciating black women as we are because of eagerness to impose an identity upon us based on any number of negative stereotypes. Widespread efforts to continue devaluation of black womanhoodmake it extremely difficult and oftentimes impossible for the black female to develop a positive self-concept. For we are daily bombarded by negative images. Indeed, one strong oppressive force has been this negative stereotype and our acceptance of it as a viable role model upon which we can pattern our lives. — Bell Hooks

Culture is a powerful force that influences our perceptions, our mindsets and even our domestic and foreign policies. The rich, messy complexity of 1,400 years of Islamic civilization and 1.6 billion Muslims has been reduced to token stereotypes. We are either avatars of destruction or the good Muslim who helps the national security narrative. But the overwhelming majority of us live in the giant middle - the grey zone - where impressions exist in more colors than just black and white." * — Rabia Chaudry

FACT: The black family (and the black male/black female relationship) was systematically DESTROYED by over 500 years of institutionalized slavery, racism, and racist media stereotypes. The white family was not. — Umoja

Mother loathed the all-black B movies Hollywood made for the "colored" audience, where the stereotypes were broader and more offensive to her, and where the musical interludes did no justice to real talent, she said, but trivialized it. — Gayle Pemberton

In a manner akin to the influence of Tiger Woods on the other side of the Atlantic, Thierry Henry has helped kick down a few of the remaining bigoted stereotypes. Through his undisputable class and dignity, Henry has made a deep-seated difference to race relations in this country. Racism will flounder whenever white children grow up with a black man as their hero. That so few comment on Henry's colour is a silent tribute to his impact. — Pete Gill

You always hear 'black Republican,' but you never hear 'white Democrat.' We've got to get beyond the labels and stereotypes. Other people have hang-ups about it. I don't. — J. C. Watts

I believe it's incredibly important to write against [racial] stereotypes. If we give in and make sure that all black women characters are asexual, gentle, and kind we wind up with another set of stereotypes. — Justine Larbalestier

There are still plenty of movie people peddling black stereotypes. I guess Tyler Perry's probably the most massively successful. — Paul Mooney

Like most guys, I had bought into the stereotype that all feminists were white, lesbian, unattractive male bashers who hated all men. But after reading the work of these black feminists, I realized that this was far from the truth. After digging into their work, I came to really respect the intelligence, courage and honesty of these women.
Feminists did not hate men. In fact, they loved men. But just as my father had silenced my mother during their arguments to avoid hearing her gripes, men silenced feminists by belittling them in order to dodge hearing the truth about who we are. — Byron Hurt