Quotes About Prejudice

We always talk about how, obviously, there is still very in-your-face aggressive racism. But there's a lot of passive racism that, in the moment, you don't even realize is racist. You chalk it up as a strange interaction you had, and then you look at the context of it later on and realize the root of it was racism.

Often with bigotry it's passive not active.

'Captain America' I love, and that would be great, but c'mon, a Frenchman doing 'Captain America?' They would burn my passport.

Had you met me when I was 18 I was very, very patriotic almost to the point of sounding a little bit bigoted or racist, but then I moved away, came to London, my eyes were opened and I saw the world.

Michael Brown happened to be black. Trayvon Martin happened to be black. Eric Garner was a black man. So this pattern continues over and over.

When I was growing up, the people who liked the Beatles, I didn't like, so I didn't pay attention to them.

This is embarrassing to admit, but I didn't really know anything about Pearl Jam. Of course, I knew who they were, but I had never really sampled them.

Scratch a Russian, and you'll find a peasant.

We come from that school where we don't believe we're different from you, and it's insulting to me on some kind of weird level that musicians are put on a pedestal.

People treat us and they put us on this pedestal like we're so much better human beings than them because we play a professional sport.

It's like, 'Oh, well of course you want gay marriage, you're gay.' I think when heterosexual people are talking to their peers and they're like, 'This is an equal rights thing,' it's a little bit easier.

People want to peg you as alternative R&B when they hear soul or see the color of your skin. It's comfortable when people see artists of color or artists that come from a different country to put that brand on us. It's just not as linear as that.

It's always nice when people discover I'm a normal person and not, because of my appearance, a half-crazed lunatic who may stab them with a Bic pen.

It's upsetting that it is such a big deal. I wish it weren't an issue all the time. It's funny that people say it's a departure, because I've been acting since I was a child. I've played three gay roles out of hundreds.

If people perceive 'Roots' to be a black history show, nobody is going to watch it.

When a guy is perceived as macho, female editors aren't going to like it - because they all want to be men.

As much as I'd love to believe that we are 'post-racial' - an idea that really gained traction after the election of Barack Obama in 2008 - I can never escape the fact that in the world I am perceived as a 'black man' and, in certain parts of the world, as a 'black gay man.'

Not that I am hugely working class, but in the U.K. I'm always perceived, casting-wise, as being working class.

We police in America in communities of color and economically challenging community, we police based on the behavior of the numerical minority that is committing crime. That small percentage of people who commit crimes in a community becomes the methods that's used for the entire community.

It's interesting: I think, as a Latino actor, the biggest challenge is being called 'Latino' because immediately, the world has a perception of what that means.

I've always felt like I'm on the outside. I think certain people judge you right away, and I've always been acutely sensitive to that. I'm fighting, whether it's accurate or not, a perception that I get of people thinking I'm dumb.

When you hit 30, people have got this perception that you're past it, and I really disagree with that.

The perception is if you are not 206lbs then you can't be considered main event talent, which is foolish.

I think everyone has such a negative perception of homeless people - including myself, before I'd researched homelessness for my role in 'Hollyoaks.'