Jurnee Smollett Quotes

White Americans can go a long time without ever thinking about the color of their skin. Black and brown Americans have no choice but to confront issues of race every day.

I have never been able to discover anything disgraceful in being a colored man. But I have often found it inconvenient - in America.

Color does matter, even though people don't see it. I've lived it my whole life. It's just what I know.

I didn't see myself any different from my white counterparts in school. I just didn't! I thought I could do what they did. And what I didn't do well, I thought people were going to give me the opportunity to do well, because maybe they saw my talent, so they would give me a chance. I had no idea that they would see me completely different.

It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once - when I was poor.

I'm an American chef. I'm American. I live here. I love being here. But, of course, it is different. A black man's journey is different.

We must treat the disease of racism. This means we must understand the disease.

We are still a nation deeply divided by race and class.

The principal challenge of the next phase of the Negro revolution is to make certain that equality of results will now follow. If we do not, there will be no social peace in the United States for generations.

While many Americans agree that 'the system is rigged' economically, few are aware of the ways in which racial inequality has been structured and embedded in our society. This is why candid, fact-based discussions about racial inequality are so desperately needed.

I know what it's like to be denied opportunity based on the nature of your skin.

God blessed us with all this money, so why not take the money and put it into my brother's case? Talk about social and racial injustice in our country, and mass incarceration in our country?

I've been socially deemed black in America, and this is a category that's been hurting my family for generations and that has also led to extraordinary cultural contributions that I'm very proud of, but it's not a real category and our society is damaged by insisting on it.

To never think about race means that it doesn't really shape your life, or more specifically, the race that you have is not a burden to you.

I think as a black woman, we have a lot of colorism going on around us, and we have a lot of racism as well.

Basically, the system works to my disadvantage for no other reason than that I am a person of color, and I am telling stories about people of color.

The lighter the skin, the more acceptable you are. The darker the skin, the more marginalised you become. I want to demonstrate that you can produce beauty in the context of a figure that has that kind of velvety blackness. It can be done.

Some people think racism has dissipated or no longer exists. But it's hidden in more strategic places.

Dark skin is considered less than light skin in the in the minds of many in our community and in the media.

I'm very light, so some people don't really know that I'm black. I've been in situations where people will say something kind of racist, and I'll step in, and they'll be like, 'Oh, well, you're light.' That still doesn't cut it, buddy.

My complexion, we too gutter: light-skinned women are more sensitive.

When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.

We know that racism and white privilege are both very much alive today.

There are all kinds of ways in which especially white men in this country have been helped by the government.

At various points in my own life, I have been laughed at scathingly for calling myself black.