Quotes from Nate Parker

I'm a perfectionist to a fault.

I walked around feeling, in a sense, that people of color, we began at the bottom of a slave ship. We were enslaved; we picked cotton. There was Honest Abe, who wore a top hat and was taller than anyone and who said, 'Enough is enough; slavery must end.' And then, black people could stand up again. But after that, we didn't catch up.

The black community is my community - the LGBT community, too, and the female community. That is my community. That's me; it's who I am.

The crazy thing is a lot of people - a lot of men, if I'm just speaking for myself - don't really start thinking about the effect of hyper-masculinity and false definitions of what it means to be a man until you get married or until you have kids. Because then, all of sudden, you have something to protect.

I think patriotism is all about wanting to see America better, wanting to see those are oppressed do better and get treated better.

Every day I'm reassessing what I've been taught against what I see, and the man I need to be if I'm going to call myself a leader of anybody.

I recognize as a man there's a lot of things that I don't have to think about. But I'm thinking about them now.

I have engaged in hyper-male culture, and I'm learning about it, and I'm learning how I can change and help young boys and young men change.

My mother always tells me, "Fear isn't from God," and I believe that. But sometimes, I wonder whether I'll be able step into the shoes that God has prepared for me.

All I can do is seek the information that'll make me stronger, that'll help me overcome my toxic masculinity, my male privilege, because that's something you never think about.

I do believe, as a person of color, the disparities are great. A lot of the roles that were sent to me were 'Gangbanger No. 1.' And when a role did come up that I felt carried and represented my community in the best ways, I wasn't the only one that knew it existed. So I'd have to compete.

Identify your niche and dominate it. And when I say dominate, I just mean work harder than anyone else could possibly work at it.

I prefer to make movies which not only have a message for 'then' but a message for 'now.'

Let me be the first to say I can't remember ever having a conversation about the definition of consent when I was a kid. I knew that 'no' meant 'no,' but that's it.

We have a tendency to sugar coat the Civil Rights movement by showing arm in arm and everyone singing 'Kumbaya'. We don't really always show the resistance from the government, the resistance from the status quo, from the majority to silence the movement.

Any psychologist will tell you that healing comes from honest confrontation with our injury or with our past. Whatever that thing is that has hurt us or traumatized us, until we face it head on, we will have issues moving forward in a healthy way.

I think, at some point, we have to be followers of Christ - not followers of White Christ, or any other color Christ, for that matter.

I'm trying to transform behaviors and ideas that have never been challenged in certain ways in my life. I'm not the kid that I was at 19.

I'm a big Hall and Oates fan.

I think chemistry and great acting go hand-in-hand.

I just feel like if I really believe what Dr. King said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,' then I should be compelled to use my God-given platform to effect change.

So if I'm 36, and I have my 19-year-old self, I'm pulling him to the side and saying, 'Listen bruh, throwing on your Timbs and your fitted hat and strolling campus trying to get a girl to say yes, or going to the club hoping you bring a girl home, that's not the way to go about healthy relationships. You need to step back.'

Leadership is one of the things I really strive to excel in in my life.

We all serve a purpose. My purpose isn't to be rejected. My purpose isn't to think small or to be introverted. This door closed is literally pushing me to the next door.