A Quote by Nipsey Russell
During all the years I entertained at the Baby Grand night club in Harlem, 90 percent of the audience was white. But when I tried to break Into television, I was told that white folks wouldn't understand what I was talking about.
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My school was 90 percent white, but 90 percent of the kids I played with were black. So I got the best of both worlds. I think that is where my comedy developed.
Why is it so difficult for many white folks to understand that racism is oppressive not because white folks have prejudicial feelings about blacks (they could have such feelings and leave us alone) but because it is a system that promotes domination and subjugation?
You white folks see UFOs in your dreams. You don't hear about Martians in Harlem.
I'd say 95 percent of my audience was white. They were mostly kind of older hipster folks like myself.
Cricket makes no sense to me. I find it beautiful to watch and I like that they break for tea. That is very cool, but I don't understand. My friends from The Clash tried to explain it years and years ago, but I didn't understand what they were talking about.
That's critical to me, the community. When I was 12 years old, I had a mental breakdown; I went berserk for a long time. I felt rejection from the white community. Couldn't understand why the pigmentation of my skin kept me from doing. Everybody always told me "You're going to be something." And of course, I began to raise questions about why it is that white folks treat us the way they do. The breakdown was very vivid. I just all of a sudden felt like I had been overcome by a train.
When 93 percent of our stories are told by white men, it's an issue. And if those white men go on and tell the stories the way they see their world, which is all white, then it's an even bigger problem.
As long as the colored man look to white folks to put the crown on what he say . . . as long as he looks to white folks for approval . . . then he ain't never gonna find out who he is and what he's about.
Our mantra is that 90 percent of all television is bad, and ten percent has never been better. We make fun of that 90 percent.
I think it's very insulting to say, 'White people don't understand.' What are you talking about? You're part of the problem then if you're... speaking and labeling all white people, saying they don't understand the issue or saying they can't relate. That's really not giving people much credit, is it?
We didn't sit around the dining table talking about Madam Walker, but the silverware that we used every day had her monogram on it and our china for special occasions had been Madam Walker's china... and the baby grand piano on which I learned to read music had been in A'Lelia Walker's apartment in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance.
We Logans don't have much to do with white folks. You know why? 'Cause white folks mean trouble.
I was born in Honduras, that's where I was born. I live in California, where no matter what you say, you're Mexican. You understand that? It doesn't matter what you say. See - you don't understand that, white people, because wherever you go, you're white. You're here, you're white. You go to L. A., you're white. You go to Denver, you're white. You go to Miami, you're still white. In L. A. I'm a Mexican, In Florida, I'm a Cuban. In New York, I'm a Puerto Rican. And when I come to Canada and I find out I'm an Eskimo.
What I can't understand why Blacks can't achieve royal status when it comes to forms that they have largely created? I mean there's a White King of Rock n' Roll, there's a White King of Jazz, how come we can never achieve titles of royalty in these fields we are supposed to prevail in? They held a so called Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the other night, where White judges credit people who resemble them with the invention of Rock and Roll. I didn't even see Blacks in the audience.
As a kid growing up and seeing so much strife taking place in society, and particularly on Blacks and people of color, I had an opportunity as a young man to witness the change that was taking place in Harlem, the exodus of white folks leaving Harlem, which I thought was a very cohesive situation. But they felt that they needed to leave.
No, we are not anti-white. But we don't have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already ... He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.
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