Black Identity Quotes

“What good's a black face if it means I'm just someone else's property? Why give me these arms and legs just to carry someone else's load, not my own?”
― Stacey Lee, Under a Painted Sky

“Whether he likes it or not, the black man has to wear the livery the white man has fabricated for him”
― Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks

“This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental "firsts"--first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor--always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me

“Today there is a great emphasis among blacks on identity: black culture, black history, and pride of race--"Black is beautiful." The importance of achieving the objective of a black sense of identity cannot be understated. It is essential and of prime significance. It must be achieved. What concerns me deeply is that identity without power is still a second-class identity.”
― Saul D. Alinsky, Reveille for Radicals