A Quote by Ann Petry

Black was bestlooking. ... Ebony was the best wood, the hardest wood; it was black. Virginia ham was the best ham. It was black on the outside. Tuxedos and tail coats were black and they were a man's finest, most expensive clothes. You had to use pepper to make most meats and vegetables fit to eat. The most flavorsome pepper was black. The best caviar was black. The rarest jewels were black: black opals, black pearls.
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.'
I would say I'm black because my parents said I'm black. I'm black because my mother's black. I'm black because I grew up in a family of all black people. I knew I was black because I grew up in an all-white neighborhood. And my parents, as part of their protective mechanisms that they were going to give to us, made it very clear what we were.
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, however, like black. It is a color that makes me comfortable and the color with which I have the most experience. In the darkest darkness, all is black. In the deepest hole, all is black. In the terror of my Addicted mind, all is black. In the empty periods of my lost memory, all is black. I like black, goddammit, and I am going to give it its due.
Adults who loved and knew me, on many occasions sat me down and told me that I was black. As you could imagine, this had a profound impact on me and soon became my truth. Every friend I had was black; my girlfriends were black. I was seen as black, treated as black, and endured constant overt racism as a young black teenager.
Black Realism or cosmopolitan black politician is a code word to say this is a black person that is not tied to a civil rights/black power traditional black politics.
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.
There is a black which is old and a black which is fresh. Lustrous black and dull black, black in sunlight and black in shadow.
'Black Panther' had a whole cast of beautiful black brilliance. Black scientists. Black presidents. The style. The technology. The color.
When I was a teenager, black pride became newly popular again. Suddenly a lot of black people were wearing the fake kente cloth and red black and green and Bob Marley. That was sort of my window into finding my own identity as a black person.
The black man in North America was sickest of all politically. He let the white man divide him into such foolishness as considering himself a black 'Democrat,' a black 'Republican,' a black 'Conservative,' or a black 'Liberal' ...when a ten-million black vote bloc could be the deciding balance of power in American politics, because the white man's vote is almost always evenly divided.
I've gotten a firsthand view at the destruction that black men and black women not being able to stay and build healthy relationships has had on the black family and black children.
Growing up, there was this explosion of B television. 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air,' you have 'Family Matters,' 'A Different World.' I had examples - of black children, black families, black women, black men - that represented who I was.
I have so many clothes, but really, I have the same variations of the same thing, usually black jeans, black jumpers, black double-breasted coats.
The locomotives are black. The coal is black. The tracks are black. The night is black. So what am I going to do with color?
I felt like it was a courageous show [Black-ish] from the beginning. We are a black family - we're not a family that happens to be black. But the show is not even about us being black. The show is about us being a family. That is groundbreaking - on TV, the black characters either happen to be black or they're the "black character," where everything they say is about being black. I think that's the genius.
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