Blackface Quotes & Sayings

No, I don't wish I knew Heaven was like the picture in my Great Divorce, because, if we knew that, we should know it was no better. The good things even of this world are far too good ever to be reached by imagination. Even the common orange, you know: no one could have imagined it before he tasted it. How much less Heaven. — C.S. Lewis

I think when black performers performed in blackface, they were kind of taking back slave songs, but it was still a little bit iffy because they were performing, a lot of times, for white audiences who found it hilarious. — Cecile McLorin Salvant

I thought Black Friday was when everyone puts on blackface and steals children from Wal-Mart. — Stephen Colbert

He [Quin] folded his arms over his chest, giving Bianca what Matheus had privately categorized as "Scary Look Number Seven." Scary Looks One through Six consisted of Quin's everyday expressions. Studied had shown Scary Look Number Eight to cause cancer in white mice. Matheus hadn't yet seen Scary Look Number Nine, but he looked forward to his future bout of schizophrenia. — Amy Fecteau

Just reading that - just reading that a person can be black and still perform in blackface, making fun of black people for a living, and at the same time be a genius and be an incredible entertainer and at the same time be extremely conflicted and feel like - just feel terrible for doing that, essentially, which is what Bert Williams felt, from what I gather, from what I read - all of that just made - was so incredible to me. — Cecile McLorin Salvant

I have a huge issue with blackface. — Rachel Dolezal

Bob Hope was a blackface comedian. He abandoned it only because he was late for a gig: 'I missed the streetcar to this theater one night and I didn't have time to put the blackface on. Mike Shea, who booked all the theaters, said, "Don't ever put that stuff on your face anymore because your expressions after a joke are priceless. — Kliph Nesteroff

Speak out, educate, do not be intimidated by the apologists, and do not let extreme racism be mainstreamed. Hopefully there will come a time when we don't need to tell our kids that Halloween is no excuse for hate, and that blackface has no place in a civilized society. — Christine Pelosi

In spouse, I mostly hear "S.mouse," the name of Chris Lilley's blackface teenage rapper in Angry Boys. And — Augusten Burroughs

Like, Australians definitely don't walk around dressed up in blackface going, 'Ha-ha.' — Chris Lilley

I was not interested in doing the plot of OEDIPUS in blackface. I did wonder, what would these people have been like if they hadn't been in that situation? ... One could look at Oedipus, or at my character Augustus, as a cynical schemer who did everything because he was hungry for power. But that's just too easy. I'm more interested in how humans can embody conflicting goals and emotions. — Rita Dove

Scientists gladly accept any new truth demonstrated by evidence, that is, proved by the very law of the cosmos. Not so with any new conceptions of religion; these are fought by the use of persecution and venom. Many of the current religious beliefs literally carried into practice would stampede humanity into the old jungle ideas and habits. — Luther Burbank

Avant-garde, adj.
This was after Alisa' show, the reverse-blackface rendition of Gone With the Wind, including songs from the Empire Records soundtrack and an interval of nineteenth-century German poetry, recited with a lisp.
"What does avant-garde mean, anyway?" I asked.
"I believe it translates as favor to your friends," you replied. — David Levithan

This practice of skinny actresses donning fat suits is essentially the new and acceptable blackface in Hollywood. — Allison Anders

Fucking kiss me already, Square," she whispered against my lips.

My eyes snapped open. This girl was so the shit. And she was all mine. — Christina Lee

I think it is very ironic that most people think that the banjo is a southern white instrument. It came from Africa and even for the first years that white people played banjo they would put on blackface. — Bela Fleck

Love is life, love is god, love is sannyas! — Rajneesh

There was all this talk when Obama got elected about how we were living in a postracial world. But we're not. Until we get to the point where James Earl Jones can play, say, George Washington, race matters. You wouldn't put a white actor in blackface to play Othello. You shouldn't have a white actor in what amounts to yellowface to play Asian. — David Henry Hwang