Quotes About Prejudice

Our industry is quick to judge you and then label you with a tag. I don't want that to happen.

I didn't know we'd been tagged as posh. I went to a state school in London, so maybe people think I have a posh voice and that's where it comes from?

Once you become tagged as anything, it becomes difficult to shake it, because the less imaginative people in the business want you to do what worked for the last guy. That's always been something I've had to deal with.

We don't realize how much racism has tainted our self-image as human beings.

Other teams and other opponents, they look and see I'm 6-foot-10 and think I'm a 5 man or whatever, so they try to take advantage of it.

It's amazing how people will treat you better when you're 'somebody.' The minute clerks in a store recognize me, they suddenly rush to take care of me. That irritates me.

I was taught to believe that the most dishonorable thing a Meredith could do was work in a white woman's kitchen and take care of a white man's child. I knew I would starve to death rather than do either.

The wrong idea has taken root in the world. And the idea is this: there just might be lives out there that matter less than other lives.

In a general way, anything that affects men is taken more seriously than anything that affects only women.

For a female artist, it takes a lot more to be taken seriously if you're not sat down at a piano or with a guitar, you know?

'Pride and Prejudice' is often compared to 'Cinderella,' but Jane Austen's real 'Cinderella' tale is 'Mansfield Park.'

Some people think that there aren't many Aboriginal actors around, and if there are, they're not that good. It's stupid. There's such an incredible pool of talent out there, and they're still coming out of drama schools. People just need to take a leap of faith.

A lot of times you'll have somebody who could be the most talented person in the world, but because they are plus-sized, they're not even considered for a call back.

I used to believe, like many people who come from poor backgrounds, that it gave me an edge, but I think that's just something we have to tell ourselves to get by sometimes. I don't believe that anymore. Children of privilege can be just as talented and clever as anybody else.

When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a black man and I wasn't pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed.

Sometimes I might get in the door a little quicker than somebody else because of my last name. But if I'm not prepared, I'm not afforded the luxury of, 'Oh, he's a little green.' It's, 'He's not talented,' where the next guy can have a bad day.

If we're so cruel to minorities, why do they keep coming here? Why aren't they sneaking across the Mexican border to make their way to the Taliban?

If I talk to a girl, it's assumed that I'm having a scene with her. If I don't, then it's assumed that I'm gay.

I talked my parents into sending me to Roedean at 16. I had this idea that if I could get into Cambridge, then I could join Footlights. My problem was that I went to a comprehensive in Brighton. I thought I'd have to start from a good school, and the best I could think of was Roedean.

Race prejudice can't be talked down, it must be lived down.

The media had me convicted of doing something wrong before I had even done anything at all, before I had talked to anyone, before I get out of bed. I'm always the bad person.

I didn't always value the ways black people talked. I thought, in order to make art out of it, you had to change it.

When people talked about O.J. Simpson being race-neutral, that was a race card. It just meant we don't think of him as black. But race-neutral is just like flesh-tone Band-aids. It's not neutral; it's white.

We don't like talking about race in the U.K. - it's a very sensitive subject. People get extremely defensive and run for the covers, but I believe we have to talk about it.