Black America Quotes

“Most people write me off when they see me.
They do not know my story.
They say I am just an African.
They judge me before they get to know me.
What they do not know is
The pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins;
The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people;
The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community;
The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance;
The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it.
Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning.
So you think I am nothing?
Don’t worry about what I am now,
For what I will be, I am gradually becoming.
I will raise my head high wherever I go
Because of my African pride,
And nobody will take that away from me.”
― idowu koyenikan, Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams

“Dear Police:

You can't protect me and be scared of me.”
― Darnell Lamont Walker

“It's ironic when black non-Muslims say Islam is not a religion that uplifts black people when two of the most celebrated black heroes in recent history were both Muslim; Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali.”
― Habeeb Akande

“Many critics complain that the criminal justice system is heavy-handed and unfair to minorities. We hear a great deal about capital punishment, excessively punitive drug laws, supposed misuse of eyewitness evidence, troublingly high levels of black male incarceration, and so forth.
So to assert that black Americans suffer from too little application of the law, not too much, seems at odds with common perception. But the perceived harshness of American criminal justice and its fundamental weakness are in reality two sides of a coin, the former a kind of poor compensation for the latter. Like the schoolyard bully, our criminal justice system harasses people on small pretexts but is exposed as a coward before murder. It hauls masses of black men through its machinery but fails to protect them from bodily injury and death. It is at once oppressive and inadequate.”
― Jill Leovy

“I was raised on the struggle of elders - iron collars, severed feet, the rifle of dirty Harriet, and down through the years, the Muslims and regal Malcolm. But mostly what I saw around me was rank dishonor: cable and Atari plugged into every room, juvenile parenting, niggers sporting kicks with price tags that looked like mortgage bills. The Conscious among us knew the whole race was going down, that we'd freed ourselves from slavery and Jim Crow but not the great shackling of minds. The hoppers had no picture of the larger world. We thought all our battles were homegrown and personal, but, like an evil breeze at our back, we felt invisible hands at work, like someone else was still tugging at levers and pulling strings.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood

“But as I reflected on what the president could have done or said differently, I also remembered what it felt like in the weeks following 9/11. When, for a few glorious weeks, we were all united as Americans. For a brief time, it didn’t seem to matter if you were black, white, or brown. We were all brothers and sisters because we were Americans. We shared certain values, a certain past, a certain goal.

We haven’t really seen that since.

Charlottesville, I knew, had the same potential to unite us.

But Trump’s response derailed that opportunity. America didn’t need a stock statement. The country was pleading for a serious discussion about race, about our fundamental need to completely stamp out the Klan and neo-Nazis. I couldn’t help but think of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing and the Charleston church shooting. Emmett Till and Jimmie Lee Jackson. Black Codes and the Southern Manifesto.

Trump, I felt, had betrayed black America.

And Jewish America. And American decency.”
― Gianno Caldwell, Taken for Granted: How Conservatism Can Win Back the Americans That Liberalism Failed

“It is well know that it is career suicide for any person in Hollywood to be explicitly conservative. If they share any perspective that pivots away from liberal orthodoxy, they are accused of racism and branded a nazi. If they are black, they are accused of insanity.”
― Candace Owens, Blackout: How Black America Can Make Its Second Escape from the Democrat Plantation

“Life in the black community has a different set of rules than the perfect America our schoolbooks go on about. Black people don’t live in that schoolbook America. Where we live, we are underpaid and over-policed, but at the same time, they expect us to work harder and longer just to get half of what they already got. It’s like they wanted us to eat dog shit, yet, they never allowed us to own dogs.”
― D.E. Eliot, Own Son

“America has never been a moral authority. America is a moral contradiction. It is a mirage of unity and freedom that disappears as soon as I reach out to touch it. As white America crumbles underneath the weight of it's hypocrisy, delusions of grandeur, and historical cruelty, Black America must be a resource and a beacon of light unto itself. Leave them in the shadows. We will carry the light and ensure our own survival and success.”
― Bethanee Epifani J. Bryant