Black Quotes - Page 97

Black musicians rhythmicized the contredanse, creating musical styles which evolved into the habanera (also known as the tango) and, later, ragtime, as well as the danza, danzón, and ultimately the danzón mambo and its offspring the cha-cha-chá.

Rather than spend so much time wondering if I'm going to get hired, or is it a problem that I've got this black-tar history, I've just got to keep doing what I'm doing and try to be decent.

My car is always black. I really struggle with red cars. I don't want to attract too much cop attention.

I started wearing all black around the time I got into Nirvana. I first heard 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' when I was about 12, and I remember jumping on my bed, so excited about it.

Black, white and nude are my essential colors. Each time I start a collection, I start with these colors; they are the elemental colors we refer to from the beginning.

I'm not angry. And I don't like the thing of the 'angry black woman,' either.

I wore the gold is symbolic of my African heritage. When my black ancestors was bought over here from Africa they were shackled by their neck, they wrist and they ankles in steel chains. I turned those steel chains into gold to symbolize the fight. I'm still a slave, only my price tag is higher.

It's hard for black women to ask for help. We think we don't need it. We're used to being in pain and living with it.

I know there are a lot of eyes on me now from young girls, and it makes me so proud. The only Black woman examples aren't Rihanna and Beyoncé. It makes me proud that I am a classical ballerina and they can look at me and see another way to succeed. That is setting a new standard.

Unfortunately, I don't train enough on an everyday basis to be a black belt, but if I put my mind to it I think I could definitely move very quickly in that world.

For years I wouldn't listen to black metal from anywhere but Norway.

Black metal seemed way deeper than anything else, and I kind of got addicted to it.

Personally, I'm very classic. If I'm going to wear a suit, it's going to be classic, black, and fit very well. There's nothing like it.

I take every role seriously. Personally, I never look at any role as Michael White. I've done that my entire life. I've never excluded myself because of color. It's never been part of the radar, when I look at anything I do. The majority of the roles that I've played have had very little to do with being black. It doesn't matter what color you are.

I said if you're thinkin' of being my brother, it don't matter if you're black or white.

It is extremely interesting to me that black males, and other black folk, are viewed as self-pitying, by either other blacks who have failed to accurately calculate their own diminished status as a result of racial animosity - both individual and systemic - or by whites who fail to comprehend how, after forcing black folk into subservience for hundreds of years, they now whine about small privileges that pale - so to speak - in comparison to the untold advantage of centuries of benefit.

The night is black, as black as night.

And I'm sure than in Poland, or somewhere, it is considered cool to drive a Porsche and wear necklaces and black silk, but at least back in Brooklyn if you did those things you were either a drug dealer or from New Jersey.

There is a kind of strength that is almost frightening in Black women. It's as if a steel rod runs right through the head down to the feet.

I have a very extreme state of mind. Things are very black or very white.

Always look for the fool in the deal. If you don't find one, it's you.

I've got a black-belt in crazy, and I know where you live.

Education remains one of the black community's most enduring values. It is sustained by the belief that freedom and education go hand in hand, that learning and training are essential to economic quality and independence.

I did not know that 'poetess' was an insult, and that I myself would some day be called one. I did not know that to be told I had transcended my gender would be considered a compliment. I didn't know — yet — that black was compulsory. All of that was in the future. When I was sixteen, it was simple. Poetry existed; therefore it could be written; and nobody had told me — yet — the many, many reasons why it could not be written by me.

If you look at literacy tests in the South, for example, they were absurdly difficult and didn't measure literacy. They were simply measuring whether or not you were black. So at every moment when we've said, hey, we don't want certain people to vote because they are not educated enough, it is often simply become a way of excluding black and brown people.