Top 1200 Black Women Quotes & Sayings - Page 3

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed, or black people have been portrayed, in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

I have a black belt in chutzpah. I was born with it. Some people, like some of the women I know, have a black belt in spending. They were born with that. But what they gave me was a black belt in chutzpah.

We as men, in particular black men, are constantly supported, nurtured, forgiven, apologized for, led, followed and coddled by black women, and they get very little in return.

Interpreting the dance: young women in white dancing in a ring can only be virgins; old women in black dancing in a ring can only be witches; but middle-aged women in colors, square dancing...?

Black women have never embraced feminism. They didn't embrace it in the '50s and '60s; they're not embracing it now. That's not new. I think it's a tendency among women in general not to be supportive of each other.

I don't think that an emphasis on the peculiar plight of black males at all suggests that others are not suffering, or that such attention suggests that black men and women feel sorry for themselves.

During the 19th-century struggle for women's rights in America, many saw a competition between rights for black people and those for women.

As a Black woman filmmaker I feel that’s my job: visibility. And my preference within that job is Black subjectivity. Meaning I’m interested in the lives of Black folk as the subject. Not the predicate, not the tangent.[These stories] deserve to be told. Not as sociology, not as spectacle, not as a singular event that happens every so often, but regularly and purposefully as truth and as art on an ongoing basis, as do the stories of all the women you love.

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?

Phillip Roth uses his Black women characters to make anti intellectual remarks about Black history month, begun by a man who reached intellectual heights that Roth will never attain. Roth is a petty bigot and his ignorant remarks about black culture expose him as a buffoon to scholars the world over.

As a little girl, my destiny was stamped onto the canvas of my imagination at 5 years old. I was watching soaps with my grandmother... The most gorgeous black women I had ever seen in my life came out, and I knew that that is what I wanted to do - be fabulous and black and on TV.

Men who are proud of being black marry black women; women who are proud of being black marry black men.

We're going to have to debunk the myth that Africa is a heaven for black people -- especially black women. We've been the mule of the world there and the mule of the world here.

I think the media and the Internet and all that stuff, has created this perception of black women as these mammy types, kind of angry, you know, full of pent up emotions and resentments. And that these women are people to feared rather than loved.

Even during the casting process, the pools of talent are so deep when you have a call for Latin women or black women or a middle-aged woman because they never get their shot. There's so much talent there.

There are expectations in how you play your character as a black woman, to be sassy and the same kind of feel, as if there are no quirky black women. I struggle with those things constantly, trying to add dimension to my work, and that's the goal, too.

A lot of the best of what's come from working on 'Orange Is the New Black' is working with the Women's Prison Association and kind of getting to see firsthand what they do for incarcerated women.

If you go to a network and say, "I wanna do prison stories about black women and Latino women and old women," you're not gonna make a sale. But, if you've got this blonde girl going to prison, you can get in there, and then you can tell all the stories. I just thought it was a terrific gateway drug into all the things I wanted to get into.

My feminist values are rooted in my socialist values. The number of women CEOs in Britain's biggest companies is irrelevant if they pay their women workers poverty wages or discriminate against black employees.

The liberal wing of the feminist movement may have improved the lives of its middle- and upper-class constituency--indeed, 1992 was the Year of the White Middle Class Woman--but since the leadership of this faction of the feminist movement has singled out black men as the meta-enemy of women, these women represent one of the most serious threats to black male well-being since the Klan.

In the suffragist and abolitionist era, there were a lot of white women and some black men and women who argued for the old hierarchy and against universal adult suffrage - often on religious grounds.

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.

Hair in the black community is such a big thing culturally. The barbershop is a place for black men to socialise, catch up and bond. It's the same for black women in the salon. Going there is my favourite thing to do in the week. You catch up with people, someone comes around with food, someone else is selling something.

But what of black women?... I most sincerely doubt if any other race of women could have brought its fineness up through so devilish a fire.

As women we're expected to be superhuman, especially black women.

I must admit to a personal lack of sympathy with women who have themselves photographed in black stockings, garter belts and boots, with bare breasts, bananas, and coy, come-hither glances.... A woman using her own face and body has a right to do what she will with them, but it is a subtle abyss that separates men's use of women for sexual titillation from women's use of women to expose that insult.

I find it difficult to say I'm black first and a woman second or vice versa. I can't make that kind of distinction. Amongst Aboriginal women I do my best to raise their consciousness both as women and as Aboriginals.

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 men should be with Black women. And they should love and honor them.

What's surprising to me now is that now that I'm talking to a lot of women about this, so many women are doing this. Straight women, lesbian women, bisexual women, poor women, White women, immigrant women. This does not affect one group.

Sometimes, you feel like, 'Am I going to be upset about this as a black person or as a woman first? Or am I gonna be both?' Because some things inherently affect black women; some things affect you as a woman and not a black person; and some things just affect you as a black person.

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.

Women think black is the most flattering color, but they're wrong. Pink adds a cosmetic-like radiance and warmth. Black drains the skin of color; pink delights the eye.

Black women, white women- all of them. I'm colorblind. I don't know the difference. I only know you're a human being and you're my children.

I'm glad we're getting to this point where representation in WWE is becoming - especially among Black wrestlers, male or female - is becoming more common. And I hope that other Black men and women, boys and girls are inspired by them.

When Miss Williams was crowned Miss America in 1983, she opened the door for Black women around the world to achieve immeasurable dreams the same way Hattie McDaniel did as the first Black woman to ever win an Academy Award.

Although the civil-rights movement did a lot to change how black life was dramatized on the American stage in the fifties and sixties, white composers and lyricists often still rely on familiar tropes when it comes to representing black women in musicals.

A hoodie is worn by everybody: kids, white men, white women, black men. But it clings to the black body as a sign of criminality like nothing else.

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.

Under slavery, families were ripped apart, and it was a desire of black men and black women to be together with their loved ones. Family meant something. Spouses meant something.

If women were in charge of everything, there would be women tyrants. If black people were in charge, there would be black tyrants. If Hispanics were in charge, then Hispanic tyrants.

I just like to have words that describe things correctly. Now to me, 'black feminist' does not do that. I need a word that is organic, that really comes out of the culture, that really expresses the spirit that we see in black women. And it's just... womanish.

Iron and coal dominated everywhere, from grey to black: the black boots, the black stove-pipe hat, the black coach or carriage, the black iron frame of the hearth, the black cooking pots and pans and stoves. Was it a mourning? Was it protective coloration? Was it mere depression of the senses? No matter what the original color of the paleotechnic milieu might be it was soon reduced by reason of the soot and cinders that accompanied its activities, to its characteristic tones, grey, dirty-brown, black.

We don't want to create a literary ghetto in which black writers are only allowed to write black characters and women writers are put on 'girl books.'

The core of the culture is racism and how black men are viewed. They've always been demonized and seen as threats in our culture. Another holdover from slavery. We've got to deal with that core root of racism and demonization of the upbringing of black men. Black women are not exempt by any means.

The fact is that it was bourgeois white feminism that I was reacting against when I stood in my first women's studies classes and said, "Black women have always worked."

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.

'Black Panther' had a whole cast of beautiful black brilliance. Black scientists. Black presidents. The style. The technology. The color.

People don't realize it hurts my feelings when someone looks at my hair or my eyes, and says, 'But you're not actually black. You're black, but you're not black black, because your eyes are green.' I'm like, 'What? No, no, I'm definitely black.' Even some of my closest friends have said that. It's been a bit touchy for me.

It's black women as perpetual sidekick. We need to hear from more women's voices. And it would be nice to see some books geared toward us.

I'm sure no intelligent white person, in his or her right white mind, want black men and women marrying their white sons and daughters and in return introducing their grandchildren to half brown, kinky haired black people.

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.

Growing up, I didn't receive the representation that I wanted so badly. I was always looking out for black characters - black women - that were specifically just about existing and weren't necessarily racialized or were centered around race.

Within the lesbian community I am Black, and within the Black community I am a lesbian. Any attack against Black people is a lesbian and gay issue, because I and thousands of other Black women are part of the lesbian community. Any attack against lesbians and gays is a Black issue, because thousands of lesbians and gay men are Black. There is no hierarchy of oppression.

I'm admitting that I don't know that to be true, but it does sound pretty good. So a big part of my childhood was affecting black culture and black accents and black music and anything black I was into.

Black women have a kind of advantage over white women in the workplace. They go in prepared to face some discrimination, so when it happens, they aren't shocked.

There's this idea if you are a woman of colour, that you must never let them see you break down. That we've got to show ourselves in the best light, always, as the 'Strong Black Women' and bring that 'black girl magic' all the time.

The middle of 'America's Women' is about the Civil War, and how women, black and white, confronted slavery and abolition. As in every other period of crisis, the rules of sexual decorum were suspended due to emergency.

I'm always thinking about what a black lady would think about what I'm doing, just because I feel like they have such great taste, mostly because as black women, we've spent a lot of time downloading what a white male narrative is, so in my head, I'm like, 'If a black woman likes it, if she responds to it, then it's probably pretty damn great.'

I think culturally, even if you just talk about it in context, the standard of beauty has not included women of color. Period. Not just black women. If you are not a certain thing, there has not been space for you.