Jens Martin Skibsted Quotes

Black artists are encouraged to explore their identity but are then pigeonholed according to their ethnicity. We may have seen the decline of old racism, but we are witnessing a new kind of racialising.

Hollywood hasn't changed. It is the most racist, anti-Indian institution in the world.

It's one thing when other African-Americans try to threaten my race card, but when people outside of my ethnicity have the audacity to question how 'down' I am because of the bleak, stereotypical picture pop culture has painted for me as a black woman? Unacceptable.

A major problem for Black women, and all people of color, when we are challenged to oppose anti-Semitism, is our profound scepticism that white people can actually be oppressed.

How dare anyone, parent, schoolteacher, or merely literary critic, tell me not to act colored.

White domination is so complete that even American Indian children want to be cowboys. It's as if Jewish children wanted to play Nazis.

People want to peg you as alternative R&B when they hear soul or see the color of your skin. It's comfortable when people see artists of color or artists that come from a different country to put that brand on us. It's just not as linear as that.

It's only in acting where I've heard in auditions, 'Can you black it up a little bit? Can you make her a little bit more urban?' And it's just like, 'What?' I don't even know the word for that.

It's very hard to be a kid, especially in a predominantly white school or white town where other people want to police your body and hair.

Liberals believe that they own blacks - still. They believe they're something proprietary about being black in this country, and if you deviate from the way they want you to think, in the way they want you to act, they grow violent.

There are many people still ashamed of their roots because of the negative connotations that come with being an 'African.' That sentiment exists many places around the world - in England, in the U.S., everywhere.

I am not renouncing my blackness and going on about my day. I am rejecting the legitimacy of the entire racial construct in which blackness functions as one orienting pole.

Hispanic gives us all one ultimate paternal cultural progenitor: Spain. The diverse cultures already on the American shores when the Europeans arrived, as well as those introduced because of the African slave trade, are completely obliterated by the term. Hispanic is nothing more than a concession made by the U. S. legislature when they saw they couldn't get rid of us. If we won't go away, why not at least Europeanize us, make us presentable guests at the dinner table, take away our feathers and rattles and civilize us once and for all.

Black art is not some kind of a magic wand: there still has to be a humble heart attached that's listening to it. And I know it's not a wand because plenty of fans love to turn on us as soon as they realize we are actual black people, with black concerns in our black lives.

I often hear things like, 'You don't look Latina enough,' and that mentality is so backwards. The fact is, I am Latina, so how are you going to tell me that I don't look Latina?

If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.

Native Americans' families experience living surrounded, living in increasingly small reservations surrounded by the society that destroyed their civilization, and are still stigmatized. For decades and decades, for hundreds of years except in Indian schools, they weren't allowed to speak their language. That stigma takes a terrible toll.

I think it's very insulting to say, 'White people don't understand.' What are you talking about? You're part of the problem then if you're... speaking and labeling all white people, saying they don't understand the issue or saying they can't relate. That's really not giving people much credit, is it?

It was quite strange that people were saying I wasn't Asian enough. It's like, 'Oh, you're not Asian enough to play an Asian role.' So what does that mean for people who come from mixed heritage? I grew up in Asia; I'm Malaysian.

Remember, MTV would only show white videos for a long time. Can you imagine that? That was the '80s when that happened. It's hard to even think of that now, you know?

If I were black, I could say I'm proud. If I were Asian, I could say I'm proud. If I were any other ethnicity, I could say I'm proud, because that's how our culture is, but if I'm white and I say I'm proud, the media will go nuts.

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.

There are a lot of leaders that talk about ending things like oppression - whether it's discrimination or getting a job - but the reason for all of this stuff is somebody's making a profit off our backs. That's the reason why black people were brought here in the first place. It was a profit motive.

I get irritated by the term 'African writer', because it doesn't mean anything to me.