Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Quotes

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

If a casting breakdown said 'All-American Type' or 'Lead Role,' I knew they weren't thinking of me.

Well, in the '80s and '70s, with the exception of Sidney Poitier and Brock Peters, maybe Ivan Dixon, if you were as big and black as I am, you were a bad guy. Simple. Because in real life, I scare people.

Even in reality shows, how they look at black women like they're the monsters - snatching wigs, and weaves and wigs, weaves and wigs, basically, and throwing water and stuff. That's how people see us often, as we are the enemies of things. I wanted to change that because that's not a good example.

When you're brown and Indian, you get offered a lot of doctor roles.

I do not want to name any individual names, but I felt like when I was working in Hollywood, there were some fellow colleagues of mine who didn't even look me in the eyes because I was Asian.

Growing up, usually when I saw a black female on television, she was either a broken character or sidekick.

I am an African-American woman of dark skin tone, and there are very specific roles that are usually given to African-American women of a darker hue. Let's start with 'Once on This Island': peasant girl. Let's go to 'The Color Purple': young girl, beaten. Let's go to 'Ragtime': Her baby's taken.

Perhaps the little Negro girl was holding a concealed razor blade. Maybe she was one of the troublemakers out for a fresh white scalp.

The less intelligent the white man is, the more stupid he thinks the black.

Young black men in America have an identity ascribed to them that is a direct legacy of slavery.

As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.

I've witnessed racism all my life. And of course there's racism and discrimination in Hollywood. You go for a part and they say, 'Oh, we really liked her, she's amazing, but we wanted to go with something more traditional'. As if I'm not a traditional American!

I guess cause i'm black boy, I'm supposed to say 'peace', sing songs, and get capped on.

Early in my career, people wanted to pigeonhole me as the bad guy because I'm of Italian-American descent, which they often were when I started out. You have to fight against it. One of the things that helps is the ability to do comedy.

I hope you didn't bring the Asian kid along thinking he's a computer genius. Because I'm not," Takumi said.

New Jersey Mayor Corey Booker last night personally rescued a woman from a burning building. Or as Fox News reported it, 'black man loots house, steals white woman.'

Of all the ways people save time, I think racism is the worst.

People are taking it for granted that [the Negro] ought not to work with his head. And it is so easy for these people among whom we are living to believe this; it flatters and satisfies their self-complacency.

The small irritations or indignities that we experience are nothing compared to what a previous generation experienced... It’s one thing for me to be mistaken for a waiter at a gala. It’s another thing for my son to be mistaken for a robber and to be handcuffed or, worse, if he happens to be walking down the street and is dressed the way teenagers dress.

Racism is simply an ugly form of collectivism, the mindset that views humans strictly as members of groups rather than individuals.

There's a difference between racism and "I don't know any better. I'm clueless." Racism is like, "I'm trying to make you feel bad." That's racism.

I struggle with racism every day

There's racism and sexism and ageism and all sorts of idiocies. But bad news is not news. We've had bad news as a species for a long time. We've had slavery and human sacrifice and the holocaust and brutalities of such measure.

Racism is a blight on the human conscience