"There has always been something wrong wif the tesses. The tesses paint a picture of me wif no brain. The tesses paint a picture of me an' my muver—my whole family, we more than dumb, we invisible."

"the farmer takes Jill down the well & all the king's horses & all the king's men can't put that baby together again crooked man crooked man pumpkin eater childhood stealer."

""I'm tired," I says. She says, "I know you are, but you can't stop now Precious, you gotta push." And I do."

"this country might have been a pio neer land once. but. there ain't no mo indians blowing custer's mind with a different image of america."

"I refuse to share my body with a man who wouldn't politically defend it."

"I'ma go fuck that bitch (yeah), I'ma go thrash that bitch (yeah) Shawty gon' suck this dick (yeah), shawty gon' suck this dick (yeah)."

"I'm tryna get high 'til I can't feel nothin'."

"When them vamps outside, lil' bitch, you better be ready."

"I could fall out the sky and I still won't feel nothin'."

"I make her scream when we fuck (slatt, scream, suck it) I don't drive R8s, I don't like those (whoa, huh, chop it and slide) I drive the Daytona and I tinted the windows (yeah, skrrt) Can't fuck with nobody (what?) Not even my shadow (yeah, no one) I got on Ed Hardy (what? What? What? What? What?) She got on stilettos (what?) She my best friend (what? What?) Yeah, we not a couple (what? What?) She a rockstar (what? What? What?) She a sex symbol (what? What? What? Let's go) The way she do that shit (what? What? What?) She make it look simple."

"Got me mad as shit (yeah), so I slapped the bitch."

"I told my boy, "Go roll like ten blunts for me"."

"In New York I Milly Rock (rock) Hide it in my sock (sock)."

"Wake up (wake up, wake up, whoa) It's the first of the month (slatt, slatt, slatt, slatt) I brush my teeth and count up."

"How you doing? Good to see you Lamarr Wilson here. Back for another video."

"Every two years during the mayoral campaign, Johnson would give $10,000 to the Democrats and $10,000 to the Republicans. Thus, his gambling establishment was protected regardless of the winner."

"Johnson is so high in the regard of the boss that he is given free rein in the operation of the bungaloo games and in promoting policy in general among the colored population."

"Naoroji lost all the money he took from playing poker in Johnson's place; we have his confession for that. We may have a fight on our hands against influences, of which we know nothing, but we will know of them, and the public will know of them, before we get through with Mr. Johnson."

"What else is there for a colored man to do?"

"We used to have a little gambling here, but the dust is an inch thick upstairs. You can’t judge by this. All the rest of the week, it will be like a graveyard."

"Half a dozen stud poker games were in operation, and the checks were piled high in front of most of the white and black gamblers who surrounded the tables. “Mushmouth” Johnson, serene and smiling, stood by and watched the play..."

"You bother me anymore, I'll have you in the penitentiary, and you'll stay there 'til I let you out."

"I bought a lot on a prairie where a town afterwards was located."

"You’ll hear from me down in Africa shootin’ craps."

"For a man who has got all the coin Johnson is said to have, he is the closest colored man in the world.""

"I didn’t exactly do much book learning, I went out to see where the money grew. Some of those who know me say that I found it."

"A man that gambles had better be without money, anyway, I may put it to some good use; you wouldn’t know how."

"When my family went in for religion and all that, I didn't really fancy so much learning and went out to see where the money grew. Some of those who know me say I found it."

"A man who gambled had no business with money."

"Now that I’m growing older, I find that my source of power comes from my identity and ethnicity"

"Whenever Black women have a point, they’re characterized as Angry Black Women, and therefore the thing they’re talking about is no longer of importance because they have to deal with them being overly emotional or something."

"I thought a lot about the concept of cultural dysphoria, and how that can shape how people relate to the world,"

"our collective relationship to the truth has become far more chaotic.”"

"I don’t particularly like putting forward an image of myself that’s too true to reality"

"I’m not sure if social-media activism serves the cause in the long term"

"I think as a queer person, kind of everything I do in the public sphere is drag in some capacity"

"A lot of my adolescence was defined by being here. I feel like the first time I really experienced freedom and autonomy was here, so I think I probably fell in love with New York and knew it was the place I wanted to live when I was 15 or 16. Then I had a series of unsuccessful attempts to move here that were thwarted by different things"

"When I reflect on it, I don’t remember being very upset about it. I remember feeling that I don’t give a flying f**k what these racist people think of me. I think bigots don’t really bother me"

"Being an actor is one of the few professions where, as an adult, you get to play!"

"Though the intentions are generally excellent with respect to giving a voice to those who were too long silenced, the movements that came before us, in the past, perhaps had more weight"

"you might say that culture has become more inclusive, that inequalities and prejudice seem to be slowly retreating, and that things which were once considered normal and acceptable are now deemed to be inappropriate"

"We have a unique voice because we grow up with the ability to empathize. We constantly have to do the work of placing ourselves in other people’s shoes"

"I noticed that whenever I was trying to talk about social justice and how Black women are framed in the media, quite ironically, I would be framed in a certain way that would demonize me and take away the value of my point"

"I recognize that people who respond negatively to what I have to say aren’t at a place yet where they are able to learn"

"I feel like when I was younger—even though I may not have been conscious [of it]—I fought my hair and I fought who I was…to try to conform, or shy away from my Blackness"

"It wasn’t until I started living in other places that I realized that growing up with the backdrop of a mountainscape is not everyone’s experience"

"The line between cultural appropriation and cultural exchange is always going to be blurry"

"I think already, at age 12, I was like, Yeah, people are racist. Why are y’all surprised?"

"Social media really shaped me and my generation and our ability to organize or express our thoughts"