Gabrielle Union Quotes

An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools

Here’s to us being afraid and doing it anyway.

I remember the moment I realized I was free, looking in a mirror and saying, “I choose my motherfucking self.

If you prioritize yourself, you are going to save yourself

Don't save your best for when you think the material calls for it. Always bring your full potential to every take, and be on top of your job, or they will replace you.

Your world is only as small as you make it.

So repeat after me: I resolve to embrace my sexuality and my freedom to do with my body parts as I see fit. And I will learn about my body so I can take care of it and get the pleasure I deserve. I will share that information with anyone and everyone, and not police the usage of any vagina but my own. So help me Judy Blume.

Minstrelsy makes the audience comfortable. Now that I am on the other side of it, and proud of my blackness, they wouldn't know what to do with me. People don't know what to do with you if you are not trying to assimilate.

You’re gonna have to be bigger, badder, better, just to be considered equal. You’re gonna have to do twice as much work and you’re not going to get any credit.

Look, you can’t take your pussy with you,” I said. “Use it. Enjoy it. Fuck, fuck, fuck, until you run out of dicks. Travel to other countries and have sex. Explore the full range of everything, and feel zero shame. Don’t let society’s narrow scope about what they think you should do with your vagina determine what you do with your vagina.

But the more empowered women in the workforce, the better. The more that women mentor women, the stronger our answer is to the old-boys’ network that we’ve been left out of. We can’t afford to leave any woman behind. We need every woman on the front lines lifting each other up . . . for the good of all of us and the women who come behind us.

But even when you know better, it doesn't mean you'are going to do better

And anything I have accomplished, I did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman".

Carrie Fisher. “Stay afraid, but do it anyway.

You can love what you see in the mirror, but you can't self-esteem your way out of the way the world treats you.

You can’t even think of ten things that make you happy,” she said. “What made you think you were ready for marriage? How is someone else supposed to make you happy if you don’t even know what makes you happy?

By the way, you can work on yourself and still have sex with someone at the same time. Or at least around the same time. Your pussy and brain don’t have to take turns. Besides, there’s a bunch of hours in the day. You can actually get to therapy and go on a date on the same day.

An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools.

Carrie Fisher had a line I love about why she and Paul Simon ended their marriage: “Things were getting worse faster than we could lower our standards.

Until you ask my husband those same questions, I just can’t answer them anymore.” But I can’t stop. I can’t help myself. “Do you know why no one asks men how they balance it all? It’s because there is no expectation of that. Bringing home money is enough. We don’t expect you to be anything more than a provider, men. But a working woman? Not only do you have to bring home the bacon and fry it up, you gotta be a size double-zero, too. You’ve got to volunteer at the school, you’ve got to be a sex kitten, a great friend, a community activist. There are all these expectations that we put on women that we don’t put on men. In the same way, we never inquire about what’s happening in a man’s urethra. ‘Low sperm count, huh? That why you don’t have kids? Have you tried IVF?

You were fly, dope, and amazing from birth,” I would tell that girl now. “From the second you took your first breath, you were worthwhile and valid. And I’m sorry you had to wait so long to learn that for yourself.

What positive happened in your life because you tore this woman down?” she asked. “And, by the way, you showed exactly how much power she has over you because you spent an hour talking about her to a roomful of people.

I thought of something he would sometimes say to himself and to others: “My belief is stronger than your doubt.” He usually said this when he was counted out after an injury, or walking away from a deal everyone thought he was crazy to turn away.

My parents gave me the pep talk when I started school, the same speech all black parents give their kids: You're gonna have to be bigger, badder, better, just to be considered equal. You're gonna have to do twice as much work and you're not going to get any credit for your accomplishments or for overcoming adversity. Most black people grow accustomed to the fact that we have to excel just to be seen as existing, and this is a lesson passed down from generation to generation. You can either be Super Negro or the forgotten Negro.

The right thing to do is, as usual, the hard thing to do.

In Omaha, we were part of the largest African American extended family in Nebraska. In Pleasanton, we would be the chocolate chip in the cookie.

You move your kids to this all-white community and force them to go to these all-white schools. You think you’ve priced yourself out of this shit. You’ve done all these things and then this happens.

This fear resonates through every industry. For my friends in corporate America there’s a reasonable fear about “mentoring” young women to be their best selves if that means they could take your job.

Modern business is set up to squeeze out women who “want it all”—which is mostly just code for demanding equal pay for equal work. But the more empowered women in the workforce, the better. The more that women mentor women, the stronger our answer is to the old-boys’ network that we’ve been left out of. We can’t afford to leave any woman behind. We need every woman on the front lines lifting each other up . . . for the good of all of us and the women who come behind us. It’s tough to get past my own fears, so I have to remind myself that this is an experiment, to boldly go where no grown-ass woman has gone before. When we refuse to be exiled to the shadows as we mature, we get to be leaders who choose how we treat other women. If I don’t support and mentor someone like Ryan, that’s working from a place of fear. And if I put my foot on a rising star, that’s perpetuating a cycle that will keep us all weak. The actresses in the generation

When I was a little girl, my mother always told me that if I ever got lost in a big city, "Look for the rainbow flag." She believed in the goodness of the LGBTQ+ community, and knew there would be protection and direction there. I always found this to be true.

The scene would give white people a chance to see themselves as complicit in cultural appropriation, but the takeaway for marginalized audiences would be different. It could tell them, "You're not crazy. Your physical and intellectual labor really has been stolen and repackaged for profit. It's real.

The problem is, there’s always an audience for negativity.

Being in union with the energy of the Universe is like an awesome dance where you trust your partner so much that you just surrender to the beat of the music.

: “An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools.

Women’s role in the development of trade unions has been significant and yet underrecognised.

I let her tell me who she was. I listened to her, even before she had words.

When you acknowledge that your vulnerability does not absolve anyone of personal accountability, you will heal from those traumas faster and more fully.

I would propose that to worry people are desensitized is to assume the jurors, and most people, were ever sensitive to Black pain to begin with.

My humaness doesn't insulate me from racism or sexism.

Did we settle, land in a safe, this-will-do spot and tether ourselves to someone for decades so we wouldn’t be standing alone at the hour of our death? And was it actually worth it?

In one study, Hunter found that a lighter-skinned woman earned, on average, twenty-six hundred dollars more a year than her darker sister. In her 2002 study of the color stratification of women, Hunter also presented real statistical evidence showing that light-skinned African American women had “a clear advantage in the marriage market and were more likely to marry high-status men than were darker-skinned women.

Enough with teaching people to pretend that sex is only for procreation and only in the missionary position and only upon taking the marital oath. If you’re having consensual sex with another adult, enjoy it.

As he raped me, I began to hover over myself. I could see the whole room. I looked at that poor crying girl and thought, “Things like this happen to bad people. Things like this don’t happen to people like me.

Believing in yourself sounds gauzy and spiritual, but it has practical applications. It affects voice quality. You remove the tremor that comes from nerves, and you eliminate the filler language and those long pauses you use when trying to gather your thoughts. You don’t get thrown by the faces looking back at you, or the follow-up questions they throw at you. You own your story already, and lots of confidence comes from that. All because you chose your damn self.

As I retraced the steps and missteps of my life, I began to stop avoiding memories that triggered emotional flashbacks, and I chose to embrace them as revelations. Each revealed a bread crumb that I had dropped along the way, leading me further on my path to understanding who I truly am.

Group therapy was the only place I could feel “not crazy.” Every time we met, I exhaled. Because when you’ve been raped, you really feel like you’re on an island. Then to be in this room, where everyone could relate, changed everything. Wow, that girl is getting straight A's. That girl got a great internship. This girl is engaged. It gave me the calm I so desperately needed. I saw the possibility of hope.

He wanted to ask her to work with him at a special place—the occasion of their prospective creative union should be memorable. Even then, he felt that if they made a game, and if the game became what he knew it could be, he would want there to be a story about the day Sam Masur and Sadie Green had decided to work together. He was already imagining Sam-and-Sadie lore, and he didn’t even have a definitive idea for a game yet.

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me, over that line. But I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.” That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people that are Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes, people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons, the Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods, to Gabrielle Union: Thank you for taking us over that line. Thank you to the Television Academy. Thank you.

My parents gave me the pep talk when I started school, the same speech all black parents give their kids: You’re gonna have to be bigger, badder, better, just to be considered equal. You’re gonna have to do twice as much work and you’re not going to get any credit for your accomplishments or for overcoming adversity. Most black people grow accustomed to the fact that we have to excel just to be seen as exisiting and this is a lesson passed down from generation to generation.

Do you know why no one asks men how they balance it all? It’s because there is no expectation of that. Bringing home money is enough. We don’t expect you to be anything more than a provider, men. But a working woman? Not only do you have to bring home the bacon and fry it up, you gotta be a size double-zero, too. You’ve got to volunteer at the school, you’ve got to be a sex kitten, a great friend, a community activist. There are all these expectations that we put on women that we don’t put on men.

He wanted to ask her to work with him at a special place—the occasion of their prospective creative union should be memorable. Even then, he felt that if they made a game, and if the game became what he knew it could be, he would want there to be a story about the day Sam Masur and Sadie Green had decided to work together. He was already imagining Sam-and-Sadie lore, and he didn’t even have a definitive idea for a game yet. But this was classic Sam—he had learned to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future.

I am told no one wants to hear about it. I even hear it from other people of color in Hollywood. Some have climbed the mountain and have been able to assimilate so thoroughly, they think they are in a parallel universe. “You’re sabotaging your own success by limiting yourself to being a black woman,” they say. They tell us that if we just stripped away these layers of identity, we would be perceived not for our color or gender, but for our inner core. Our “humanness.” My humanness doesn’t insulate me from racism or sexism. In fact, I think I can deal effectively with the world precisely because I am a black woman who is so comfortable in my black-womanness. I know what I can accomplish. And anything I have accomplished, I did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman. This is not the message that assimilated people of color in Hollywood want to hear. In exchange for a temporary pass that they think is permanent, these ones who’ve “made it” then turn and yell back to the others, “No, keep going! Assimilation is the key! Deny your victimhood! Let go of your identity.” Better bring your mittens, that’s what I know.

But what does that say about aspirational living? Hey, you moved into a big house and you made it...except you didn't. There's this idea that you will be safe if you just get famous enough, successful enough, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, move into the right neighborhood, do all these things to fully assimilate into the America people have been sold on. We all bought in, and we keep thinking if we just get over this mountain of assimilation, on the other side is a pot of gold. Or maybe a unicorn, perhaps a leprechaun. Any of those is as plausible as the acceptance of the wholeness of me. But there's just another mountain on the other side. And someone will be ready to tell you, "Don't be breathing hard. You need to make this look easy.

The Avengers you assemble don't have to be golden by the standards of the industry you are breaking into. They just need to have the same work ethic as you, and believe in effective communication and positive affirmation.

I believe there are certain things that prisoners do very well. And their handling of rapists is one of them. So . . . I feel pretty solid about that. Whatever he’s endured brings me joy. I hope it happens every day of his life. A few times a day. I’m perfectly okay with that.

Fair & Lovely, an extremely profitable Unilever

When Black women assert themselves, that somehow threatens people. This happens in retail situations, corporate offices, and school hallways. A Black woman can be minding her own business, and how she responds to provocation or even a random question will be used against her.

It doesn’t matter what you say, it matters how you make people feel. And you can’t control that.

The eight women took off, racing to a photo finish in the time it took me to take a breath. The winner was Gail Devers, the woman who once could barely walk. Watching her victory lap, I felt that pull again on my heart. “A lot of times in athletics and in life you feel walls closing in and you can’t get out,” she said at the press conference afterward. “Use me as an example. If you believe in yourself, if you have faith in yourself, you can do anything.

Why don’t you go the surrogacy route?” Each time this was presented, I felt the constant, public prodding to acknowledge my body’s failures.

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me, over that line. But I can’t seem to get there no how. I can’t seem to get over that line.’ That was Harriet Tubman in the 1800s. And let me tell you something: The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there. So here’s to all the writers, the awesome people that are Ben Sherwood, Paul Lee, Peter Nowalk, Shonda Rhimes, people who have redefined what it means to be beautiful, to be sexy, to be a leading woman, to be black. And to the Taraji P. Hensons, the Kerry Washingtons, the Halle Berrys, the Nicole Beharies, the Meagan Goods, to Gabrielle Union: Thank you for taking us over that line. Thank you to the Television Academy. Thank you.

That creates yet more work for the next woman up. That’s what can happen when we mentor and empower. That’s what happens when we realize that any joy we find in the next woman’s pain or struggle is just a reflection of our own pain: “See how hard this is? Do you appreciate how difficult this is?” Instead, I want to heal her and me.

That’s the real story. Gabrielle Union’s Baby Hopes: “Everyone Needs to Get Out of My Pussy!

Just as the cops were annoyed when Ricky said he had been repeatedly stopped because he is black, discussion of race is often dismissed or talked over unless it is in a sanctioned space. You can talk about your experience at a roundtable on race, but don’t talk about yourself at a “regular” roundtable.

You think in terms of winning and losing," she said, "but if you're winning, who's losing?" "HIM!" "That's your husband" she said slowly, like this might be news to me. "You're not supposed to want him to loose." "Wow!" I said. "You don't know me, huh!

I was willing to disfigure myself in order to be deemed 'presentable' and 'pretty'. To be truly seen

To be a black person is to understand what it is to be automatically infantilized and have it be assumed that you don’t have the talent or the skill set required to do your job

I was desperate just to be seen. I was afraid of anybody else getting attention. Because there’s only so much to go around".

We have so internalized the self-hatred and the demands of assimilation that we ourselves don't know how to feel about what naturally grows out of our head

Things were getting worse faster than we could lower our standards.

The number-one draft pick or the up-and-coming action hero will never choose me, because I’m dark skinned,” my friend said. On the other hand, she has sometimes felt fetishized by men who briefly date her solely for the visual. “After Lupita got big, I noticed it was trendy to like me,” she said. “On that note, white men love me. It’s almost like a validation for them. ‘Look at this black woman on my arm, natural hair, black skin, natural ass . . . See, I’m down!

That’s some shit, and it hurts. We talked about the disconnect between the adoration so many black men shower on their mothers and grandmothers and their refusal to spend the rest of their lives with a woman who resembles their hue. “Why isn’t the same type of woman good enough or even worth considering?” she asked me. “And do they even know they’re doing this?

I am continually awed by the honor and responsibility of raising free Black girls. May you each embrace your vulnerability as your superpower, and may I not falter as I attempt to lead by example.

Stay afraid, but do it anyway.

Maybe adulthood is learning how to be as kind to our family as we are to our friends.

I am free and deserving simply because I exist . I don't have to do all these other things to be worthy of respect and safety.

I got out my phone to research Croatia, and spent the night going down a rabbit hole learning about the country and its immigration policies. Because when you are confronted with that kind of perceived threat of violence, it plays with your head. You wonder what you might have done to incite it, when really, you just existed in a public space that did not want you. In 2019, there’d been a spike in nationalistic hate crimes in Croatia, one of the whitest countries in the world with Croats making up more than 90 percent of the population, and Serbs being its largest “minority.” That night I read countless accounts of Black travelers horrified by racism in Croatia, including apparent poisoning of meals at restaurants where waiters stood around and giggled as Black people ate. Beatings, intimidation, and refusal of service. I

An empress does not concern herself with the antics of fools.” She smiled, so I smiled. That kindness, one empress to another, one woman to another, released me from the bullshit.

In fact, I think I can deal effectively with the world precisely because I am a black woman who is so comfortable in my black-womanness. I know what I can accomplish. And anything I have accomplished, I did so not in spite of being a black woman, but because I am a black woman.

People don't know what to do with you if you are not trying to assimilate.

...but you're never going to get inclusive in your work if you can't figure out how to get inclusive in your social life.

I see you, Mom. I see what you are doing for these kids, and how you keep them together. I give you respect, because nobody is going to give you praise for doing what black women have done forever, raising kids who are not their own.

I want you to tell people that fear can kill you," Sook said, "I was afraid, and it killed me.

And, by the way, you showed exactly how much power she has over you because you spent an hour talking about her to a roomful of people.

You were fly, dope, and amazing from birth,’ I would tell that girl now. ‘From the second you took your first breath, you were worthwhile and valid, and I’m sorry you had to wait so long to learn that for yourself.

When I was little, one of my barometers for wealth was if the family had Welch’s grape juice.

I, like many women, know what the hell is wrong with me. Whether we choose to do something about it remains to be seen.

I am someone who physically hides when I am feeling, let’s say, stressed in a situation. Behind a garbage can, behind a tree. If I am somewhere and get an attack of the feels, I look for the nearest place to stash myself. I am the Where’s Waldo? of emotional availability.

By the way, you can work on yourself and still have sex with someone at the same time. Or at least around the same time. Your pussy and brain don't have to take turns.

A woman in the public eye who doesn't want kids? She-devil! You probably kick puppies!

I honestly don't know what came first- a love of reading the newspapers, or wanting to be Super Negro, the magical special black person who has all the knowledge and is never caught out there looking ignorant.

When I was 19, I got a job at Payless shoes with some friends. It was easy work. You didn’t actually have to help anyone, that was the beauty of it. The customers help themselves and you ring them up, so basically you can fuck around all day and get paid.

Sometimes I’ll be in the ladies’ room, washing my hands next to another woman. She’ll take a few glances, which I notice, and as I’m readying myself to walk out the door, she’ll say, “Me too.” She doesn’t have to tell me what she means. I nod. I’ve been doing rape advocacy and sharing my own story since the beginning of my career. We don’t hug. We don’t cry. She nods back at me. Just two women in a moment of mutual respect, acknowledging the truth and consequences of our experience. Feeling, in that moment, less alone on our respective islands.

If someone had been writing a manual for police officers and medical personnel on how to handle a rape case with compassion, I would have been the perfect test case on procedure. They were wonderful. And I know this now because I have lobbied Congress and state legislatures about treatment of rape victims. I’ve seen worst-case scenarios, and they’re devastating. Now I can appreciate the care with which I was handled. Now I know it rarely happens that way and it really rarely happens that way for black women. I am grateful I had the experience I did, wrapped up in the worst experience of my life. Now.

I sued Payless for negligence, but I wanted to sue them for my dad looking at me like that. I hated that. To this day, I hate it. The look was: Damaged. Victim. Guilt. Fear. My dad never acknowledged it in words, but I was his favorite because I was most like him. I followed the rules, I got great grades, blah blah. And in that moment I was damaged. It was as if someone had broken his favorite toy.