A Quote by Killer Mike

Atlanta is unique to me. You got poor black people, but I also saw this: I saw black doctors, lawyers, educators. All you gotta do is want to be it to see it, and once you see something, it can be a reality.
I saw how the Government was run there [in Africa] and I saw where black people were running the banks. I saw, for the first time in my life, a black stewardess walking through a plane and that was quite an inspiration for me.
I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he pointed down and said, 'Look.' I looked and all I saw was water. And he said, 'Look again,' which I did, and I saw oil on the water and the city reflected in the puddle. It was a great revelation to me. I can't explain it. He taught me how to see, and how to trust what I saw. Painters have often taught writers how to see. And once you've had that experience, you see differently.
I just hate when things get labeled as "black movies." I don't say, "Oh, this weekend, I want to see an all-white movie," or "I want to see a black movie." I just go to a movie because I saw the previews and I relate to it. I want to see it because the previews look interesting.
'Crash' came from personal experience. I saw things inside me from living in L.A. that made me uncomfortable. I saw horrible things in people and saw terrible things in myself. I saw a black director completely humiliated, but the three people around me just thought it was funny. 'No,' I said, 'that is selling your soul.'
The easy answer is to say that it's a part for black people to see black heroes, but to me it's important to young Mexican kids to see a black hero.
I think one of my first jokes - in the black community, there's people who have jokes about skin tone. People like, 'You so black, you purple.' 'You so black, you gotta smile so we can see you at night.'
I founded the Me Too Movement because there was a void in the community that I was in. There were gaps in services. There was dearth in resources, and I saw young people - I saw black and brown girls - who are hurting and who needed something that just wasn't there.
I come from a real working class background, and I didn't know anyone sophisticated - except I saw Edie Sedgewick once at the Art Museum in Philly. She had these black leotards and little black pumps and this big ermine cape and all these white dogs and black sunglasses and black eyes. She was classy!
Even people who say that black people are minorities, there are a billion black people in the world. A billion white people. What part of that is a minority? If you separate yourself, then maybe. But I see black people as one man. When I see people beaten on the streets of America, that hurts me. I feel that.
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.'
I myself saw the great works of Western civilization for the first time in my high school in Lithuania in bad black-and-white reproductions on miserable paper. That was, for many years, what art was for me. But from those miserable black-and-white reproductions, I got something, something unmistakable.
Poor is the new black. So on this film [The Land], there are poor black people, but there are also poor Latinos, and poor white people as well.
As I took another breath, I saw the three stars again. They were not calling to me; they were letting me go, leaving me to the black universe I had wandered for so many lifetimes. I drifted into the black, and it got brighter and brighter. It wasn't black at all - it was blue. Warm, vibrant, brilliant blue...I floated into it with no fear at all.
What's 'Atlanta' about? Technically, it's about a couple guys who are friends, but to me, 'Atlanta' is about black lives. I'm getting a real look at what black life means in Atlanta.
I don't know, when I was a kid, when I would see shows that changed my life, I would go to see shows where there was my mother taking us to see classic rock concerts, like Zeppelin, or when I saw Pink Floyd or when I saw, you know, when I was a little older, and I saw Nine Inch Nails, and I saw The Cure.
On the Black Sea, my father saw it begin. And on the Black Sea, seventy years on, I saw the beginning of its end.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!