A Quote by Baron Vaughn

Black people have to define who we are, or others do it for us.

Baron Vaughn

Quote Topics

Black Black People Define Others People Us

Quote Author

Baron Vaughn
American - Comedian
Born: December 18, 1980

To be an aritst is not to wait for others to define us, but to define ourselves, claim our lives.

Jan Phillips

There are conversations going on about the Church constantly. Those conversations will continue whether or not we choose to participate in them. But we cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what our Church teaches... We are living in a world saturated with all kinds of voices. Perhaps now, more than ever, we have a major responsibility as Latter-day Saints to define ourselves, instead of letting others define us.

M. Russell Ballard

Many are so preoccupied with what others think it defines their existence. When we fixate externally, it keeps us from truly knowing ourselves and our destiny. Most [people] fear looking inward for worry they won't find greatness, but when you stop allowing others to define your worth, you'll see—greatness exists in us all, waiting to be? expressed

Jillian Michaels

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.

Michelle Alexander

Give up defining yourself - to yourself or to others. You won't die. You will come to life. And don't be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it's their problem. Whenever you interact with people, don't be there primarily as a function or a role, but as the field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.

Eckhart Tolle

Our sense of identity is in large measure conferred on us by others in the ways they treat or mistreat us, recognize or ignore us, praise us or punish us. Some people make us timid and shy; others elicit our sex appeal and dominance. In some groups we are made leaders, while in others we are reduced to being followers. We come to live up to or down to the expectations others have of us.

Philip Zimbardo

Sometimes it seems as if I have spent the first half of my life refusing to let white people define me and the second half refusing to let black people define me.

Thomas Sowell

We define our identity always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the things our significant others want to see in us. Even after we outgrow some of these others—our parents, for instance—and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live.

Charles Taylor

Jazz is a white term to define black people. My music is black classical music.

Nina Simone

It is a call for black people in this country to unite, to recognize their heritage, to build a sense of community. It is a call for black people to define their own goals, to lead their own organizations.

Stokely Carmichael

Countless people have attempted to define the absolute power of the world of nature. Some praise it as god, some call it the Buddha, others call it truth. Still others convert nature into a philosophy by which they attempt to sound its deepest truth. Such attempts to define the power of nature are no more than striving to escape its effects.

Koichi Tohei

Others do not define you - you define yourself through your words and actions.

Karen Handel

I think that clothes and accessories define and describe who we are. I can't see many differences between them; they are indeed a way to introduce ourselves to other people, and they help us transmitting a message to others.

Margherita Missoni

Your goal as a candidate - define others before they can define you.

Dana Perino

What I say about myself, black footballers or black pop stars is that we have been 'elevated out of blackness.' Because when people see us, they don't see us as being black. These are the issues that we should address.