Chuka Umunna Quotes

We live in a society that wants to label you with a color, sexuality, religion, or ethnicity. It divides us, but it also allows us to find pride in our identity.

When are we going to stop labeling everyone? How many times have I been referred to as 'out gay actor?' Do we say, 'out heterosexual actor' when we refer to Tom Hanks?

Wherever I go, people ask: 'What is she? What is she?' There has always been an agenda - they're excluding me or including me in something with that question. It is the first thing agents in Los Angeles ask me. And then I'd hear: 'You're not black enough, you're too black, you're Italian - no, you're Spanish.'

There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.

I'm not - I'm not going to define people by labels: who's a real Republican, who's not a real Republican.

Labels can be really helpful when we have the autonomy to label ourselves. But when other people label us without our permission, that's when it becomes dangerous.

These days I find myself wanting to avoid being pigeon-holed, ghettoized, held in a different category than other authors. And when people ask me if I'm a black writer, or just a writer who happens to be black, I tend to say that it's either a dumb question or a question which happens to be dumb.

I really don't want to be a stereotype.

I don't like being put into a category.

They always like to put labels on me.

I was just trying to say that it's unnecessary; you don't need to label yourself. I guess it came off the wrong way, because then everyone labelled me as gay. That's not what I was trying to say. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course!

We are tagged as comedians, villains, etc. but those are just character traits of a role and there is no need for differentiation.

Most of us, when imagining an All-American, wouldn't picture a man who looked like me. Not even I would.

I don't want to have any category stamped on my face.

I had a niche. And my niche was that I was brown. So it's like, 'Great, I get to go up for all these 'brown parts.'' I call them 'brown parts' because that's what they are. That's not to be resentful, because I loved playing those parts - I got to meet so many cool actors.

For those looking outside-in, it's not fair - or accurate - to assign someone an identity based off the first thing that we see.

I've lived 16, 17 years of my life in Asia, and that's most of my life. I was born in Asia - I've lived cultures that are synonymous with Asian culture - but it's still not Asian enough for some people.

I don't want to be 'de-ethnicised.' I hate it when people say, 'Oh I don't even think of you as a woman,' or, 'I don't even think of you as a black woman.' Well what do you think of me as then? A loaf of bread?

Everyone in the world, regardless if they're Muslim or not, does not have to adhere to the label society slaps on you.

I will no longer enter into the all-American skin game that demands you select a box and define yourself by it.

I'll tell you where I stand on the issues, and then I'll let the pundits decide how to label me.

At some point along the way, I stopped being a writer, and I became a black writer. I never used to be a black writer. I used to write 'Spider-Man,' 'Green Lantern,' whatever was lying around. 'Thor,' 'Hulk,' whatever. Now, if the phone rings or when the phone rings, it's almost exclusively some project that has something to do with my ethnicity.

Color don't mean anything. People gonna try to put you in a place one way or the other.

I hate being categorized.

A lot of people get stereotyped into roles just from how they look, and I have played such a variety of characters.