A Quote by Mat Johnson

I look white to a lot of people. And I'm not. I'm African-American. I'm mixed. I like to call myself Mulatto because that definition fits. So, you know, I've dealt with the conflict my whole life between how I look and my actual ethnic and racial identity.

Mat Johnson

Quote Topics

Actual African African-American American Because Between Call Conflict Dealt Definition Ethnic Fits How Identity Know Life Like Look Lot Mixed Myself People Racial Identity White Whole Whole Life

Quote Author

Mat Johnson
American - Writer
Born: August 19, 1970

or The Last Exorcism, I researched a lot of real exorcisms. I watched videos of exorcisms, I listened to tapes, and I read actual accounts of priests' logs. I also looked at a lot of the physicality. I would look into fits of hysteria and look at energies of people in manic, hysteric fits.

Ashley Bell

For me it's hard, especially being a young African-American woman. My dad doesn't look like what you might call the 'safe' African-American male that America would accept, if you know what I mean.

Normani Kordei

At Harvard I was taking an African-American studies class, and we were reading about the tragic mulatto. Invariably, the tragic mulatto can't fit in either world and flings herself off a bridge. So I'm reading, and I'm like, 'Oh, my God, I think I'm in literature,' but my life was never like that.

Soledad O'Brien

Mixed-race blacks have an ethical obligation to identify as black - and interracial couples share a similar moral imperative to inculcate certain ideas of black heritage and racial identity in their mixed-race children, regardless of how they look.

Thomas Chatterton Williams

To make an absolutely gross generalization, I think a lot of people feel like if you're mixed, more often than not you're quote unquote white. So if you're mixed, you embrace the mainstream culture more than the African-American culture.

Keegan-Michael Key

The Jews cannot be classed as a 'race' per se, they are an ethnic group. '...the Jews form an ethnic group; that like all ethnic groups they have their own racial elements distributed in their own proportions; like all or most ethnic groups they have their 'look,' a part of their cultural heritage that both preserves and expresses their cultural solidarity...they have developed a special racial sub-type and a special pattern of facial and bodily expression.

Carleton S. Coon

I would definitely like to see the education process more enhanced in African-American communities, because we need to be educated on laws that are relevant to our communities and our people, as well as to any other ethnic groups. A broader view of how people perceive African-American boys and girls in this country is what I'd like to see.

Tracy Martin

A man is an island, but the water is deep And the shore on the other side is ragged and steep To look for perfection is a lonely old ride It takes a whole lot of courage and a whole lot of pride When you look for independence and you get what you want How come you look back, thinking what have I done? But time and again, it dawns on me It's the price we pay for liberty I should have know, we all need a place to call home

Joey Tempest

There are novels that end well, but in between there are human beings acting like human beings. And human beings are not perfect. All of the motives a human being may have, which are mixed, that's the novelists' materials. That's where they have to go. And a lot of that just isn't pretty. We like to think of ourselves as really, really good people. But look in the mirror. Really look. Look at your own mixed motives. And then multiply that.

Margaret Atwood

I have an identity crisis which is not resolved because I'm a dual citizen. My whole family is American, and I was born in India but I was raised in Canada. But all my extended family is American, I've held an American passport and I've spent my whole adult life in between New York and LA. So I feel like an American... and I also feel like a Canadian! I wish more people were dual citizens and then I wouldn't feel like such a freak.

Emily Haines

There is a political and racial context behind everything that I do. Not always because I design it that way, or because I want it that way, but rather because it's just the way people look at the work of an African-American artist in this country.

Kehinde Wiley

This film isn't about "white racism", or racism at all. DEAR WHITE PEOPLE is about identity. It's about the difference between how the mass culture responds to a person because of their race and who they understand themselves to truly be. And this societal conflict appears to be one that many share.

Justin Simien

As Black people, we're very used to empathizing with the world through white people's eyes, because they're the protagonists. I know what it's like to look at the world and empathize with Superman because I spent my whole life doing that.

Rege-Jean Page

For me to be the first African-born WWE Champion is incredible because now, people who look like myself can look at TV and see on WWE television that anything is possible because I'm doing it.

Kofi Kingston

When I looked at 'Dear White People,' you have four African-American students who are all very different and who are trying to figure out who they are. They're dealing with identity issues and crises. That is exciting to me, to see African-American young people on a page, on a screen, who are so diverse and whose stories are all so different.