Context

This line is spoken by John Prentice (played by Sidney Poitier) in the film Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, directed by Stanley Kramer (1967).

Interracial marriage was still illegal in 17 states (bless your heart, Mississippi!) when Guess Who's Coming to Dinner wrapped up filming in the middle of 1967. Who's coming to dinner? Why, Sidney Poitier, of course, playing John Prentice—a black man engaged to a white woman who is meeting her parents for the first time.

In one of the film's many dramatic scenes, John confronts his father, who wants to tell him how to live his life. John asserts his independence, both as a son and as a man, telling him "You think of yourself as a colored man. I think of myself as a man." In other words, stop living in the past, mister. To live in the future, you have to move forward.

But before you do, move backward and check out the clip.

Where you've heard it

You've heard this whenever someone wants others to look beyond his or her race. This idea is still controversial half a century after the release of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. When Raven Symone expressed a similar idea to Oprah in 2014, she set the Twittersphere on fire.

Additional Notable References:

• This iconic film was remade in 2005 as Guess Who, with a race reversal—Zoe Saldana brings Ashton Kutcher home to her parents. (Our bet: Saldana will remake the film again in 2025 when she brings Sam Worthington home to visit her Na'vi parents in Guess Who's Coming to Avatar?)

Pretentious Factor

If you were to drop this quote at a dinner party, would you get an in-unison "awww" or would everyone roll their eyes and never invite you back? Here it is, on a scale of 1-10.

This is the perfect quote to start a conversation on whether or not we live in a post-racial society, although if you're white, you can probably do it without using the phrase "colored man."