Touring a segregated America - forever being stopped and harassed by white cops hurt you most 'cos you don't realise the damage. You hold it in. You feel empty, like someone reached in and pulled out your guts. You feel hurt and dirty, less than a pe...
When I was younger, I was very princessy. I always wanted to be blond-haired and blue-eyed. This was before Mulan, so I was very upset about all the Cinderellas. I always tried to imagine that maybe Snow White was Chinese since she had black hair.
I was adopted by a Salvadorian mother and a white father. Growing up having complete identity crisis. Then my search for my mother and trying to find out why I was given up, and how could a mother give up a child, then finding out the circumstances o...
Why the desire for death. A clean paper or pure white wall. One false line, a scratch, a mistake. Unerasable. So obscureby adding million other tracings, blend it, cover over. But the original scratch remains, written in gold blood, shining. Desire f...
Yes, 'Black Girl/White Girl' might be described as a 'coming-of-age' novel, at least for the survivor Genna. It is also intended as a comment on race relations in America more generally: we are 'roommates' with one another, but how well do we know on...
I think the 'New York Times' reviews overall tend to overlook popular fiction, whether you're a man, woman, white, black, purple or pink. I think there are a lot of readers who would like to see reviews that belong in the range of commercial fiction.
Why don't we hear more about and from Asians when it comes to race in America? Are Asians the new Invisible Man - there but not there? In some ways, yeah. Blacks and whites are always carping about the metrics of racism. And any conversation about im...
I sometimes read about authors who say they require a perfectly silent room maintained at precisely 68 degrees, with trash bags taped over the windows and a white-noise machine in the corner to write, and I think, 'Who are these people, and do any of...
liberty, which means resisting all forms of cultural authoritarianism, be it from the right wing church, black ideologues, black nationalists, or mainstream white media. We have to accent liberty and freedom of expression and thought in all their for...
Unfortunately I don't live by a Target now, so I just go to a regular Starbucks as opposed to a Starbucks nested inside a Target, which is my ideal situation. That works out for me. I like that white noise, those interruptions, and the people around ...
Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: 'We don't serve colored people here.' "I said: 'that's all right, I don't eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.
Language is political. That's why you and me, my Brother and Sister, that's why we supposed to choke our natural self into the weird, lying, barbarous, unreal, white speech and writing habits that the schools lay down like holy law.
I was brought up in black neighborhoods in South Baltimore. And we really felt like we were very black. We acted black and we spoke black. When I was a kid growing up, where I came from, it was hip to be black. To be white was kind of square.
I was so inspired by Dr. King that in 1956, with some of my brothers and sisters and first cousins - I was only 16 years old - we went down to the public library trying to check out some books, and we were told by the librarian that the library was f...
It's rare in the NBA, but I have a lot of young female fans from eight to eighteen because of the way I dress and the way I do my hair. People sometimes call me a pretty boy, but I embrace it. It's fun, and I guess it just kind of comes with being a ...
I grew up in a small Southern town, and there were white people and black people. Coming to New York to go to Columbia, every time I went into the subway I was absolutely astounded because you see people from all over the world who actually live here...
Chief Guard Barnes: Are you able to see the white line painted on the floor directly behind you, Six-Double-Five-Three-Two-One? Alex: Yes, sir. Chief Guard Barnes: Then your toes belong on the *other* side of it!
Django: [playing his role as a black slaver to the hilt] You niggas gon' understand something about me! I'm worse than any of these white men here! You get the molasses out your ass, and you keep your goddamn eyeballs off me!
Brian Taylor: I want somebody to talk to, not just sleep with. Do you fucking understand what I'm saying? Mike Zavala: White people get hung up on this fucking soulmate bullshit. Just hook up with a chick that can cook and wants kids!
Ash: What's that white stuff around his mouth? Kylie: I think he eats soap. Mr. Fox: That's not soap. Kylie: Wha- why does he have that... Mr. Fox: He's rabid. With rabies.
Dr. Gonzo: We won't make the nut unless we have unlimited credit. Raoul Duke: Jesus Christ, we will, man. You Samoans are all the same. You have no faith in the essential decency of the white man's culture.
