Quote

As a teenager, my blackness was also questioned by some of the life choices I made that weren't considered to be 'black' choices. For example, joining the swim team when it is a known fact that 'black folk don't swim'; or choosing to become a vegetarian when blacks clearly love chicken.

— Issa Rae

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

When you're a little kid, you don't see color, and the fact that my friends were black never crossed my mind. It never became an issue until I was a teenager and started trying to rap.

— Eminem

I went to a predominantly white school, and I was the only black girl. I can remember thinking, 'I don't want to be as dark as I am - I want to be a little fairer.' I didn't want to be me.

— Kelly Rowland

I am black, and there's no getting around that, but being black doesn't define every aspect of my life.

— Aisha Tyler

There were only ever two black kids at my school. I never considered myself to be 'a black kid'. I was who I was. Which isn't to say things haven't happened to me that wouldn't have happened if I wasn't black.

— Daley Thompson

I never had that thing about being black. If the whole world was like that, maybe there would be more harmony and love.

— Tina Turner

I could easily have decided that life was cruel, that being black meant everything was stacked against me.

— Ben Carson

There are so many people who have this idea of who I am because I'm black.

— Clarence Thomas

The less I talk about being black, the better.

— Idris Elba

✗Opposing Perspectives

Merely by describing yourself as black you have started on a road towards emancipation, you have committed yourself to fight against all forces that seek to use your blackness as a stamp that marks you out as a subservient being.

— Steven Biko

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.

— Soledad O'Brien