Parenting & Family Quote by Sammy Davis, Jr.

Sammy Davis Jr. turns a racist society’s favorite obsession - who you marry, what your kid looks like - into an indictment that lands like a slap. The question is sharp because it refuses the polite script. He’s not asking for advice; he’s exposing the absurd bargain America keeps offering public Black figures: assimilate, behave, choose “the right” kind of spouse, and maybe the violence of prejudice will soften. Davis’s punchline is that the bargain is fake.

The context matters. Davis married Swedish actress May Britt in 1960, and the backlash was immediate: death threats, canceled bookings, and a quiet but brutal industry pressure to keep interracial relationships offstage. When he asks whether marrying a Black woman would make things “better,” he’s naming the damned-if-you-do trap from both directions. Interracial marriage triggers white panic; marrying within his race wouldn’t spare his child the structural barriers built into housing, schooling, policing, and employment. Either way, the system’s logic remains: your family becomes a referendum on America’s hierarchy.

The subtext is also about celebrity as false armor. Davis had the tux, the Rat Pack proximity to power, the all-American variety-show talent. None of it could guarantee basic dignity for his child. By framing it as parental anxiety - “Would they treat my child any better?” - he makes racism intimate, not theoretical. The line “Erect fewer barriers?” is the bleak coda: barriers aren’t misunderstandings to be clarified; they’re architecture, maintained on purpose. Davis’s wit is really a survival tool, turning public scrutiny into a spotlight on the country instead of on his private life.