Tim Reid Quotes

You know, I'm an African-American quarterback. That may scare a lot of people because they - they haven't seen nothing that they can compare me to.

Could it be that my circle is largely black and that it is why I am influential in black circles but not in white circles?

America is so accustomed to some depiction of native people that is entirely racist, and there's a perception that that is okay.

I am performing this role of the artist and this role of the 'negress' coming into a white-box institution. It's kind of a self-appointed role: the self-designated negress.

I think that every minority in the United States of America knows everything about the dominant culture. From the time you can think, you are bombarded with images from TV, film, magazines, newspapers.

It's called 'Dear White People,' but really, it's about these black characters and how they are involved or not involved in a racial scandal in ways that might surprise them and others, right?

Even people who say that black people are minorities, there are a billion black people in the world. A billion white people. What part of that is a minority? If you separate yourself, then maybe. But I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.

I think the black community has a lot to work on internally with what they deem successful.

I grew up in a largely black community during the '70s and '80s that scoffed at 'white' music. That music - folk, rock, some disco - was considered soulless, aberrant, just one more example of the Caucasian's desire to scream and yell and demand whatever their privilege and perpetual adolescence dictated they should demand.

The only time my Dad ever said I might have not gotten something because of how I look was when I auditioned for Tyler Perry's 'Meet the Browns.' My dad didn't think I was 'black enough' for the show. My dad isn't the most politically correct person.

People want to call me racist for doing the Bon Qui Qui character, and I'm like, 'Look, Bon Qui Qui is a representation of a hood chick. That's it.' There are lots of hood chicks out there: some are black, some are Mexican, some are Salvadorian, and some are white.

Different cultures have different predilections for different kinds of crime.

Culture is this thing that exists apart from our real life but is something we all have tacitly agreed to in America. And what film and television do, particularly in this country, is lay out the characters involved in this invisible agreement and dictate who and what can participate.

I believe that Trayvon Martin's life might well have been spared if many of us who care about racial justice had raised our voices much, much sooner and much, much more loudly about the routine stereotyping and profiling of young black men and boys.

When I was studying comedy in Chicago, it wasn't long after 9/11. There were a lot Middle Eastern comedians who were doing bits about hailing cabs and being terrorists. So the first two years, I didn't do any of that because I wanted to separate myself from those guys. But race is a big part of who I am, and it should be a big part of my comedy.

People in Hollywood go home to their wives and children who look like they do. If you're in that position, your natural thought pattern is sometimes to think, 'Superman, oh yeah he's white.' You can't get mad at somebody for doing that. It's the world they live in and for some, they only live in that bubble.

There is an imagined thing called black culture. But culture is a construction. It is learned behavior, not innate. The black American experience is the American experience.

My 'Black Panther' run really wasn't about Black Panther. It was about Ross. It was about exploding myths about black superheroes, black characters, and black people, targeted specifically at a white, male-dominated retailer base.

What's 'Atlanta' about? Technically, it's about a couple guys who are friends, but to me, 'Atlanta' is about black lives. I'm getting a real look at what black life means in Atlanta.

Kanye West does not represent all black people.

Where I went to high school at was a predominantly white town, and I definitely got pulled over a number of times for driving in the wrong car on the wrong side of town. As you get older, you start to realize that at any moment, there could be a trigger, and that could be you in that situation.

Black people are not often considered mainstream.

#BlackLivesMatter brought a new sense of urgency, audacity, and outrage to the issue of police violence against black men that has made it impossible to ignore, to cover up, or to justify.

There's a lot of other rappers that aren't what they claim to be, and they get a pass because they're black.

I had a casting director tell me to be blacker.