The notion that a black suspect can do no wrong and is always the victim is B.S.
American history and the black experience are inextricable. And both are inextricable from policing. Far more often than not, that's been a good thing.
For a black student to work in southwest Mississippi for example - or in the Delta in 1960, 1961, 1962 - was high-risk work.
Black women are the strongest most hardworking people on earth.
That reasonably intelligent and well-meaning young people are willing to call white black is a matter of concern. It raises questions about our ways of education and about the values that guide our conduct.
We all evolved out of the same three or four groups in Africa, as black Africans.
Rap's conscious response to the poverty and oppression of U.S. blacks is like some hideous parody of sixties black pride.
Yeah, I did see where the people dissing me were coming from. But, it's like, anything that happened in the past between black and white, I can't really speak on it, because I wasn't there. I don't feel like me being born the color I am makes me any less of a person.
Black Sabbath was written on bass: I just walked into the studio and went, bah, bah, bah, and everybody joined in and we just did it.
The visionary, industrious, Christian, and segregated black community of the early- to mid-1960s understood and embraced the importance of a positive self-perception. It was this same recognition that drove millions of young patriotic black men throughout our nation's history to be among the first to volunteer when our nation went to war.
Slashing its way to the finish line, 'Black Swan' is the first ballet movie for highbrow horror fans for whom ballet itself signifies little to nothing. Those of us who know and love ballet can only look on it with a different kind of horror.
When the culture is strong, you've got this consistency where black people can grow up in these places with this voice just resonating about our special-ness in the universe. And I always say you're in trouble if you get too far away from that core that grounds you.
Growing up as a product of the black civil-rights movement, I had a lot of different models for black weirdness, whether it's Richard Pryor or James Baldwin or Jimmy Walker.
The realities are that, you know, as a black man, you know, Barack can get shot going to the gas station, you know.
It's pure Black Label. It's about violence and booze. That's all it is. There is no plan.
I like boring black and white films with subtitles. I'm basically a drip.
There is no one right now in my judgment that can unite the Black electorate in such a way to present our agenda to a nominee to have them forthrightly address our concerns.
I wasn't always black... there was this freckle, and it got bigger and bigger.
Black reporters are as capable of racism as anyone else.
To me, being a black woman and being beautiful are not mutually exclusive.
It's definitely an intrinsic part of my makeup that makes me want to see black when everyone else is seeing white.
But you see, our society is still trapped in this binary, black/white logic and that has had some very positive implications for our generation. It's had some very negative ones as well and one of the negative ones is that it creates enormous identity problems for people who have one black ancestor and all white ancestors for example.
If the KKK was smart enough, they would've created gangsta rap because it's such a caricature of black culture and black masculinity.
I do remember doing shows strictly in black and white, too, so you're right.
The second album of Black Mages is currently in the process of recording and the basic tracks have already been completed. Hopefully sometime in the future we will be able to have a concert.
I'd like to do more Shakespeare. I'd like to do Iago in Othello. I look so benign. It would be interesting to see that black evil come out of my soul.
Franz Kline, who became known for his black and white paintings, did a whole series of gorgeous landscapes and wonderful portraits that may still hang in Greenwich Village.
I don't care who the president is - it ain't just all about who's black or who's white or who's Republican or Democrat, it's about who is for the betterment of people, period.
This whole notion that all African-Americans are not going to vote for Obama is not necessarily true. I believe a third would vote for me, based on my own anecdotal feedback. Not vote for me because I'm black but because of my policies.
I wanted to write a novel that would make others feel the history: the pain and fear that black people have had to live through in order to endure.
What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy.
For her fifth wedding, the bride wore black and carried a scotch and soda.
I always figured I would live long enough to see a black president. The movies predicted it. Usually, Morgan Freeman.
You can't be what you don't see. I didn't think about being a doctor. I didn't even think about being a clerk in a store, I'd never seen a black clerk in a clothing store.
I think my wife saw a picture of the rock group Journey, and they're kind of aging, and the one guy had dyed blonde hair with black roots, and... my idea was to get a little earring, I wanted to have a dangling earring.
For me the march was a labor - a labor of love - but I was busy handing out flyers for the National Association of Black Social Workers, so I really wasn't standing in the crowd listening and observing. I was busy.
