Assumptions Quote by Jesmyn Ward

I think often if people don't have a lot of experience with a particular type of person or a particular type of brain, they…

— Morgan Parker

As African-Americans, we don't start with a blank slate, while other people may. In our position, there's always some sort of stereotype that is…

— Xavier Woods

I think that black fiction authors have to work very hard to avoid being typed as seeking only a black audience.

— Anonymous

Black children need to see their lives reflected in the books they read. If they don't, they won't feel welcome in the world of…

— Valerie Wilson Wesley

Young people are constantly absorbing - through media, textbooks, and policy - the myths of American exceptionalism; for black children, this means that what…

— Clint Smith

A lot of times, we talk about black people as if being black is all they are. They get up, go to work... and…

— Margot Lee Shetterly

These days I find myself wanting to avoid being pigeon-holed, ghettoized, held in a different category than other authors. And when people ask me…

— Colson Whitehead

Black people watch more television than anybody else, which makes it legitimate to talk about television. Its anesthetizing effect has been quite real. But…

— Michael Eric Dyson

I think Black intellectuals see too deeply. That's the problem. It's a cause of anxiety, because we see things differently.

— Ishmael Reed

Typically, there's this perspective among writers - and black writers: there's this idea that there is one person - and maybe beyond writers -…

— Ta-Nehisi Coates

The notion that black folks have nothing to learn from scholarship that may reflect racial or racist biases is dangerous. It promotes closed-mindedness and…

— Bell Hooks

Black people don't have an accurate idea of their history, which has been either suppressed or distorted.

— Kareem Abdul-Jabbar