A Quote by Thomas Jones

When you see a black guy on TV, he's always a thug or always portrayed as someone that's in trouble. It spreads the message to everyone else that that's who we are. People often don't try to understand black men as a whole. We're creative, strong and influential.
The black community wants to buy things and want to see themselves portrayed in a certain way. And if they don't like what they see, then they won't spend their money. Everyone's not gonna always relate to Captain America; everyone is not going to always relate to Thor. A lot of characters just don't speak to them.
Black and awkward is the worst, because black people are stereotyped as being anything but awkward in mainstream media... Black people are always portrayed to be cool or overly dramatic, anything but awkward.
Hair in the black community is such a big thing culturally. The barbershop is a place for black men to socialise, catch up and bond. It's the same for black women in the salon. Going there is my favourite thing to do in the week. You catch up with people, someone comes around with food, someone else is selling something.
People are going to always have their opinions whether you date a black man or not. I've had girlfriends, family members comment on black men that I've dated as well as white people. People want to see what they want to see. And if anybody doesn't fit that picture they're going to be like, 'Yeah, I didn't see you with him.'
Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.
If you see black people being portrayed in this one way well then, when you see a black person in real life, you're going to carry some of that way of thinking with you.
Men always want to be terribly influential, but I see that as somewhat external. Do I imagine myself being influential? No. I want to understand. And if others understand--in the same sense that I have understood--that gives me a sense of satisfaction, like feeling at home.
My composition often goes toward the black middle class or the black super-wealthy or strong historical black figures.
I used to joke for years that I was a black man. I adopted the black culture, the black race. I married a black woman, and I had black kids. I always considered myself a 'brother.'
As a black person on the outside, because there's so much black art and so much of black people's work circulating, so many people imitating what black people do, you would think that there'd be more black people on the business side. It didn't cross my mind that every label head, for the most part, is a white guy.
We've been fighting our whole lives to say we're just human beings like everyone else. When we start separating ourselves in our work, that doesn't help the cause. I've heard it for years: 'How do you feel being a black filmmaker?' I'm not a black filmmaker, I'm a filmmaker. I'm a black man, I have black children. But I'm just a filmmaker.
The Dominican Republic says 'We're black behind the ears.' And in Mexico, 'there's a black grandma in the closet.' They know, they've just been intermarrying for a long time. But if we did the DNA of everyone in Mexico a whole lot of people would have a whole lot of black in them.
There's this idea if you are a woman of colour, that you must never let them see you break down. That we've got to show ourselves in the best light, always, as the 'Strong Black Women' and bring that 'black girl magic' all the time.
Why do we always have to see black people in hindsight? Why are the Hollywood movies always historical? What about the contemporary image of black people?
My dad, who was creative director in the '60s, always wore black jeans with black desert boots; he thought he was cool. He told me to buy a pair as well. I didn't like black, so I got the sand color, and I've been wearing them since college.
I have this problem where it's like'I can never stop thinking. For instance, I find myself obsessing over the treatment of black women and girls by black men'the fact that black men have a special prejudice against black women and generally don't protect them or attempt to understand them, and I cry an awful lot about that.
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