" Racism is both overt and covert. It takes two, closely related forms: individual whites acting against individual blacks, and acts by the total white community against the black community. We call these individual racism and institutional racism. The first consists of overt acts by individuals, which cause death, injury or the violent destruction of property. This type can be recorded by television cameras; it can frequently be observed in the process of commission. The second type is less overt, far more subtle, less identifiable in terms of specific individuals committing the acts. But it is no less destructive of human life. The second type originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than the first type. "

" It’s only in his music, which Americans are able to admire because a protective sentimentality limits their understanding of it, that the Negro in America has been able to tell his story. It is a story which otherwise has yet to be told and which no American is prepared to hear. As is the inevitable result of things unsaid, we find ourselves until today oppressed with a dangerous and reverberating silence; and the story is told, compulsively, in symbols and signs, in hieroglyphics; it is revealed in Negro speech and in that of the white majority and in their different frames of reference. "

" 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 a black woman and a feminist I listen to the music with a willingness to see past the machismo in order to be clear about what I’m really dealing with. What I hear frightens me. On booming track after booming track, I hear brothers talking about spending each day high as hell on malt liquor and chronic. Don’t sleep. What passes for “40 and a blunt” good times in most of hip-hop is really alcoholism, substance abuse, and chemical dependency. When brothers can talk so cavalierly about killing each other and then reveal that they have no expectation to see their twenty-first birthday, that is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo "

" My painting is not violent, it’s life that is violent. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves, the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death. "

" Voguing is an African-American dance, made for and by African-American people. The music is very important. It is modern progressions of the African drum. It is the ethnological musical imprint that comes from blues, jazz, gopsel and funk. All these things were embodied in the traditional music of vogue. "

" We have all heard the maxim “If you do not love yourself, you will be unable to love anyone else.” It sounds good. Yet more often than not we feel some degree of confusion when we har this statement. The confusion arises because most people who think they are not lovable have this perception because at some point in their lives they were socialized to see themselves as unlovable by forces outside their control. We are not born knowing how to love anyone, either ourselves or somebody else. However, we are born able to respond to care. As we grow we can give and receive attention, affection, and joy. Whether we learn how to love ourselves and others will depend on the presence of a loving environment. "

" Stop worrying about your identity and concern yourself with the people you care about, ideas that matter to you, beliefs you can stand by, tickets you can run on. Intelligent humans make those choices with their brain and hearts and they make them alone. The world does not deliver meaning to you. You have to make it meaningful…and decide what you want and need and must do. It’s a tough, unimaginably lonely and complicated way to be in the world. But that’s the deal: you have to live; you can’t live by slogans, dead ideas, clichés, or national flags. Finding an identity is easy. It’s the easy way out. "

" Your life is not an episode of Skins. Things will never look quite as good as they do in a faded, sun-drenched Polaroid; your days are not an editorial from Lula. Your life is not a Sofia Coppola movie, or a Chuck Palahniuk novel, or a Charles Bukowski poem. Grace Coddington isn’t your creative director. Bon Iver and Joy Division don’t play softly in the background at appropriate moments. Your hysterical teenage diary isn’t a work of art. Your room probably isn’t Selby material. Your life isn’t a Tumblr screencap. Every word that comes out of your mouth will not be beautiful and poignant, infinitely quotable. Your pain will not be pretty. Crying till you vomit is always shit. You cannot romanticize hurt. Or sadness. Or loneliness. You will have homework, and hangovers and bad hair days. The train being late won’t lead to any fateful encounters, it will make you late. Sometimes your work will suck. Sometimes you will suck. Far too often, everything will suck - and not in a Wes Anderson kind of way. And there is no divine consolation - only the knowledge that we will hopefully experience the full spectrum - and that sometimes, just sometimes, life will feel like a Coppola film. "

"

Being a black American is to be a part of history’s most interesting culture. We are literally the newest ethnicity to come into existence (although it isn’t recognized as such). Think about it though, black Americans were created by interracial relations throughout time in North America. We aren’t from Africa, we are actually an American creation, and therefore indigenous.

We have been stolen, beaten, killed, sterilized, treated worse than cattle, adn we have thrived in spite of it. Yes, there is racism, but we have come from slavery less than 200 years ago to having a black man running the U.S. That doesn’t mean that black Americanism is great yet, but we have advanced at an extremely rapid rate.

We DO have an amazing culture, but everyone wants to have it. Everyone dips their hands in our creations, looks, and fashions, and we receive no credit.

Be proud of your culture because it is exactly what you live in. Black American culture is literally a part of everything.

"

" What’s a fuck when what I want is love? "

" The racism, the sexism, I never let it be my problem. It’s their problem. If I see a door comin’ my way, I’m knockin’ it down. And if I can’t knock down the door, I’m sliding through the window. I’ll never let it stop me from what I wanna do. "

" Knowing who you are is the greatest wisdom a human being can possess. Know your goals, what you love, your morals, your needs, your standards, what you will not tolerate and what you are willing to die for. It defines who you are. I have learned not to obsess over being number one all the times. Sometimes not being number one gives you the incentive and the courage to fight harder; it is motivating. Have patience. Have grace. Be secure enough in yourself to base success on personal growth.Take at least twenty minutes every day to be still and quiet. Time to sit in complete silence. Think. Reflect. Dissect your thoughts and feelings. Relive any mistakes from the day before. Decide how to be smarter and tougher, how to be more committed and considerate of others and more sensitive and aware of your surroundings. Choose something you learned that will make you a better person.Choose to be happy and positive. Live like the blessed human you are. Define you. Knowing who you are allows you to create your own beautiful legacy. "

" America needs an honest discourse with itself. It’s like the greatest country in the world by default. But, we could be the greatest country that ever existed if we were just honest about who we are, what we are, where we wanna go. Things like racism are institutionalized, it’s systematic. You might not know any bigots, you feel like, ‘well, I don’t hate black people so I’m not a racist’ but you benefit from racism, just by the merit of the color of your skin. There’s opportunities that you have, you’re privileged in ways that you may not even realized because you haven’t been deprived in certain ways. We need to talk about these things in order for them to change. "