Top 87 Quotes & Sayings by Nate Parker
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American actor Nate Parker.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Leadership is one of the things I really strive to excel in in my life.
You don't choose who you sit next to in a theater. You sit in a theater, and there's an energy that happens.
The crazy thing is a lot of people - a lot of men, if I'm just speaking for myself - don't really start thinking about the effect of hyper-masculinity and false definitions of what it means to be a man until you get married or until you have kids. Because then, all of sudden, you have something to protect.
I coach a high school wrestling team and a middle school team. I consider myself a coach and an activist, so I'm really involved in the community.
I walked around feeling, in a sense, that people of color, we began at the bottom of a slave ship. We were enslaved; we picked cotton. There was Honest Abe, who wore a top hat and was taller than anyone and who said, 'Enough is enough; slavery must end.' And then, black people could stand up again. But after that, we didn't catch up.
I just feel like if I really believe what Dr. King said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,' then I should be compelled to use my God-given platform to effect change.
I immediately felt the need, back when I was a managing tech engineer, to attach myself to Nat Turner. And to research him and learn about him and try to find ways into his life that I could apply to my life.
I, for one, believe that partisanship should have nothing to do with the actions of Christ. You're either Christlike, or you're not.
Any psychologist will tell you that healing comes from honest confrontation with our injury or with our past. Whatever that thing is that has hurt us or traumatized us, until we face it head on, we will have issues moving forward in a healthy way.
I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for 'then' but a message for 'now.'
The American dream is more about opportunity than anything else.
I think, at some point, we have to be followers of Christ - not followers of White Christ, or any other color Christ, for that matter.
All I can do is seek the information that'll make me stronger, that'll help me overcome my toxic masculinity, my male privilege, because that's something you never think about. You don't think about other people.
I think chemistry and great acting go hand-in-hand.
I do believe, as a person of color, the disparities are great. A lot of the roles that were sent to me were 'Gangbanger No. 1.' And when a role did come up that I felt carried and represented my community in the best ways, I wasn't the only one that knew it existed. So I'd have to compete.
I never felt the need to introduce all the obstacles in my past when I say, 'Hello, my name is Nate.' But at the same time, I've never hidden from it.
I think patriotism is all about wanting to see America better, wanting to see those are oppressed do better and get treated better.
Women have been such an important part of my life. I try, every day, to be a better father to my daughters and a better husband.
Identify your niche and dominate it. And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.
So often, when we don't have people that can be representative or symbolic of leadership and of faith, of purpose, in that absence we become bitter and resentful.
Let me be the first to say I can't remember ever having a conversation about the definition of consent when I was a kid. I knew that 'no' meant 'no,' but that's it.
I'm a perfectionist to a fault.
I was very insecure approaching the idea of directing a feature film. I told myself I would not move until I felt I was moving in power rather than moving in desperation to make a movie.
I'm a big Hall and Oates fan.
So if I'm 36, and I have my 19-year-old self, I'm pulling him to the side and saying, 'Listen bruh, throwing on your Timbs and your fitted hat and strolling campus trying to get a girl to say yes, or going to the club hoping you bring a girl home, that's not the way to go about healthy relationships. You need to step back.'
My father passed away when I was very young, so I was head of household for a very long time. Whether it came to cooking food or having to braid hair to get kids out of the door for school, I've been one that has - with the help of my mother - has been a father figure for a lot of young ladies.
When I was young, to have a big nose, big lips or dark skin was the worst. You were the wretched. That was something I not only felt, but I participated in.
Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate. So, with reckless abandon, we strive to be like the majority.
The black community is my community - the LGBT community, too, and the female community. That is my community. That's me; it's who I am.
We have a tendency to sugar coat the Civil Rights movement by showing arm in arm and everyone singing 'Kumbaya'. We don't really always show the resistance from the government, the resistance from the status quo, from the majority to silence the movement.
We all serve a purpose. My purpose isn't to be rejected. My purpose isn't to think small or to be introverted. This door closed is literally pushing me to the next door.
In all actuality, we got to do better about preparing our men for their interactions with women.
If I don't know how to swim and two weeks later I know how to swim, I know how to swim.
I don't want to be a leader that is one-dimensional or two-dimensional because he's not willing to be open.
If a person was accused of being a racist when he was young - he said some racially insensitive thing or someone had him on tape calling someone the n-word or whatever - and then you fast forward and he feels, Oh, back then I didn't say this or that. He's not thinking about the person that he hurt when he said what he said, or however it came out, or the effects that it could have had. He's not thinking about it. He's thinking about his own self and how he feels.
When I think about 1999, I think about being a 19-year-old kid, and I think about my attitude and behavior just toward women with respect objectifying them.
I think it's like the '60s - we're going to see another revolution in film where these new filmmakers stand up and take ownership of what film is and mould it into what they want.
Because we are a conglomerate of our experiences - you take away any experience and you take away a piece of identity. You take away a piece of identity and we don't really know who we are.
I'm trying to transform behaviors and ideas that have never been challenged in certain ways in my life. I'm not the kid that I was at 19.
I think there is having a behavior that is disrespectful to women that goes unchecked, where your manhood is defined by sexual conquests, where you trade stories with your friends and no one checks anyone. At 19, that was normal.
I recognize as a man there's a lot of things that I don't have to think about. But I'm thinking about them now.
And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.
I'm a work in progress. I'm trying to be better.
I got work to do. I got a lot of work to do within myself.
I want young people to ask me if I'm serious. Our young people have been lied to and misled for so long. When I stand on this soapbox, I want young people to ask me that because once they know I'm serious, they'll be willing to ride with me.
Trying to convince someone that they are a racist or they have White Privilege - if it's in the air they breathe and the culture supports them, sometimes they never have to think about it at all.
I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for "then" but a message for "now."
A lot of those old ideas are dying with the people who created them, and there's this new generation of filmmaker that's saying, "We're in this together, these are issues that we all deal with, let's just present issues to screen without bias and figure out what the audience has to say about them."
I'm not perfect, I'm a flawed man, but I'm willing to try to get better, I'm willing to listen.
This is the psychosis of being a human being - the things that we deal with on a day-to-day basis that make us who we are and that sometimes we have to get on the couch and talk out.
Every day I'm reassessing what I've been taught against what I see, and the man I need to be if I'm going to call myself a leader of anybody.
I need to take toward a lot of things that will refine me and make me better suited for leading anyone out of any place of injustice to a place of justice.
The crazy thing is a lot of people - a lot of men, if I'm just speaking for myself - don't really start thinking about the effect of hyper-masculinity and false definitions of what it means to be a man until you get married or until you have kids. Because then all of sudden you have something to protect.
It's therapy. [people] say true healing requires honest confrontation, and that can be seen on a macro scale with America and the things that have been swept under the rug, whether it be with the native Americans or slavery, or whatever holocaust that's happened on this soil.
Sadly, black people disassociate ourselves from the things which make us who we are, identifying them as lesser, or inferior. It's a form of self hate.
Self-esteem and identity are very fragile things. I think a lot of times, those are the motivations for why people do take their own lives - not being seen, not being recognized, not being loved, not feeling supported, not feeling understood.
My mother always tells me, "Fear isn't from God," and I believe that. But sometimes, I wonder whether I'll be able step into the shoes that God has prepared for me.
We kind of reduce our responsibility to not saying the N-word and to condemning the Klansmen, rather than saying many of our celebrated institutions are systemically racist. Many of our institutions that deal with law enforcement or controlling the bodies of Black people are systemically racist. Many of our educational institutions are systemically racist. Many of our corporate institutions are systemically racist. We don't have those conversations, so things don't change.
When an artist becomes complacent, he dies.
I think it takes a lot of courage to be able to direct a film. If you have that courage and that vision together, and you pick the cast that you believe will achieve your vision, you win.
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