W Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with W. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow 'them' to be more like 'us'.”
“Whites had already posted a sign on the black church in Taylor County, Georgia: "The first Negro to vote will never vote again." Snipes was not deterred. In July 1946, he cast his ballot in Taylor County's primary. In fact, he was the only black person to do so; and with that act of democratic bravery, Maceo Snipes signed his death warrant.
A few days later four white men showed up at Snipes's house and demanded that he step outside. As he stood on the porch, they pointed their guns at him and began firing. Snipes staggered and fell to the ground. They just walked away. His mother ran out of the house and got him to the hospital, but in Jim Crow America, black patients did not have the right to health care. He lay in a room the size of a closet unattended for six hours bleeding, just bleeding. This strong man, this veteran, lingered for two more days, but the damage was too extensive, the medical treatment too slow, and Georgia's hate too deep.”
Source: One Person, No Vote: How Voter Suppression Is Destroying Our Democracy
“Whites have always put one against another and now they have a dead man who was nothin' but a, he admitted it himself, Malcolm X, was a tramp or had white women sellin' their body for him, he was nothin' until the Honorable Elijah Mohammed made him great, made him great, taught him, even his name X come from Elijah.”
“Whites have been the most subsidized group in the history of the United States and maybe the history of the world, while Blacks were enslaved and were the assets of Whites.”
“Whites have more than eleven times the net worth or wealth of African Americans. They make greater salaries. Our unemployment rate is twice theirs. You look at the prison system and who that's chewing up.”
“Whites have traded their culture for power.”
Source: Whites Confront Racism: Antiracists and their Paths to Action
“Whites impose these rules on themselves because they know blacks, in particular, are so quick to take offense. Radio host Dennis Prager was surprised to learn that a firm that runs focus groups on radio talk shows excludes blacks from such groups. It had discovered that almost no whites are willing to disagree with a black. As soon as a black person voiced an opinion, whites agreed, whatever they really thought. When Mr. Prager asked his listening audience about this, whites called in from around the country to say they were afraid to disagree with a black person for fear of being thought racist.
Attempts at sensitivity can go wrong. In 2009, there were complaints from minority staff in the Delaware Department of Transportation about insensitive language, so the department head, Carolann Wicks, distributed a newsletter describing behavior and language she considered unacceptable. Minorities were so offended that the newsletter spelled out the words whites were not supposed to use that the department had to recall and destroy the newsletter.
The effort whites put into observing racial etiquette has been demonstrated in the laboratory. In experiments at Tufts University and Harvard Business School, a white subject was paired with a partner, and each was given 30 photographs of faces that varied by race, sex, and background color. They were then supposed to identify one of the 30 faces by asking as few yes-or-no questions as possible. Asking about race was clearly a good way to narrow down the possibilities —whites did not hesitate to use that strategy when their partner was white—but only 10 percent could bring themselves to mention race if their partner was black. They were afraid to admit that they even noticed race.
When the same experiment was done with children, even white 10- and 11-year olds avoided mentioning race, though younger children were less inhibited. Because they were afraid to identify people by race if the partner was black, older children performed worse on the test than younger children. “This result is fascinating because it shows that children as young as 10 feel the need to try to avoid appearing prejudiced, even if doing so leads them to perform poorly on a basic cognitive test,” said Kristin Pauker, a PhD candidate at Tufts who co-authored the study.
During Barack Obama’s campaign for President, Duke University sociologist Eduardo Bonilla-Silva asked the white students in his class to raise their hands if they had a black friend on campus. All did so. At the time, blacks were about 10 percent of the student body, so for every white to have a black friend, every black must have had an average of eight or nine white friends. However, when Prof. Bonilla-Silva asked the blacks in the class if they had white friends none raised his hand. One hesitates to say the whites were lying, but there would be deep disapproval of any who admitted to having no black friends, whereas there was no pressure on blacks to claim they had white friends.
Nor is there the same pressure on blacks when they talk insultingly about whites. Claire Mack is a former mayor and city council member of San Mateo, California. In a 2006 newspaper interview, she complained that too many guests on television talk shows were “wrinkled-ass white men.” No one asked her to apologize.
Daisy Lynum, a black commissioner of the city of Orlando, Florida, angered the city’s police when she complained that a “white boy” officer had pulled her son over for a traffic stop. She refused to apologize, saying, “That is how I talk and I don’t plan to change.”
During his 2002 reelection campaign, Sharpe James, mayor of Newark, New Jersey, referred to his light-skinned black opponent as “the faggot white boy.” This caused no ripples, and a majority-black electorate returned him to office.”
Source: White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
“Whites, it must frankly be said, are not putting in a similar mass effort to reeducate themselves out of their racial ignorance. It is an aspect of their sense of superiority that the white people of America believe they have so little to learn. The reality of substantial investment to assist Negroes into the twentieth century, adjusting to Negro neighbors and genuine school integration, is still a nightmare for all too many white Americans.
White America would have liked to believe that in the past ten years a mechanism had somehow been created that needed only orderly and smooth tending for the painless accomplishment of change. Yet this is precisely what has not been achieved.”
Source: Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
“Whites may be surprised by the strength of black voter solidarity. Chris Bell, a white Democratic congressman from Texas, was redistricted into a largely black area and promptly crushed in the 2004 Democratic primary by the former head of the Houston chapter of the NAACP. He felt betrayed: He said he had spent his entire career “fighting for diversity, championing diversity,” and was dismayed that “many people do not want to look past the color of your skin.”
This only demonstrated how little Mr. Bell understood blacks. As Bishop Paul Morton of the St. Stephen Full Gospel Baptist Church in New Orleans said of black voters, “I’ve talked to some people who say, ‘I don’t care how bad the black is, he’s better than any white.’”
Many blacks also expect all blacks to vote the same way. Jesse Jackson criticized Alabama congressman Artur Davis for voting against Mr. Obama’s signature medical insurance legislation, saying, “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
Racial consciousness explains why President Barack Obama drew support even from blacks who ordinarily vote Republican. No fewer than 87 percent of blacks who identified themselves as conservatives said they would vote for him. In the three states that track party registration by race—Florida, Louisiana, and North Carolina—blacks were dropping off the Republican rolls in record numbers and rallying to the Democrats.
As one GOP black explained during the primaries, “Most black Republicans who support John McCain won’t tell you this, but if Barack Obama is the nominee for the Democratic ticket, they will go into the voting booth in November and vote for Obama.”
“Among black conservatives, they tell me privately, it would be very hard to vote against him [Obama] in November,” said black conservative radio host Armstrong Williams.
During the campaign, former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown said, “I think most white politicians do not understand that the race pride we [blacks] all have trumps everything else.”
Source: White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century
“Whites might dirty her all right, but not her best thing, her beautiful, magical best thing-the part of her that was clean. No undreamable dreams about whether the headless, feetless torso hanging in the tree with a sign on it was her husband or Paul A; whether the bubbling-hot girls in the colored-school fire set by patriots included her daughter; whether a gang of whites invaded her daughter's private parts, soiled her daughter's thighs and threw her daughter out of the wagon. *She* might have to work in the slaughterhouse yard, but not her daughter.”
Source: Beloved
“Whites saying 'make America white again' is like millionaires saying 'make the wealthy rich again.”
“Whites they pretended to ignore, as they busily lived mirror-image white lives.”
“Whites were the winners, blacks were the losers, we wrote the history books, and they didn't feature.”
“Whites who otherwise were able to tolerate a black president, Obama, because on certain issues he appealed to them on substance, Trump was able to reach down into some of those same people and pull out this racism inside them.”
“Whites would rather not be involved in race matters, I think.”
“Whitesnake more than most rock bands would get a very significant percentage of women in the audience and those were the ones I'd hear the voices because from where I am on stage is a pretty good spot.”
“Whitestorm was experienced, wise and brave. When Firestar had been made deputy, he had shown not a scrap of resentment that a lesser cat might have felt. He had supported him from the beginning, and he was the cat Firestar naturally turned to when he needed advice.”
“Whitetail Septic is a professional Septic servicing company, serving Tulsa and Northeast Oklahoma for 30 years. "If you're backed up, we've got you!"
Website: whitetailsepticpumping.com”
“Whitethorn knew- even at Mistward- that the queen hadn't yet stepped into her birthright. Knew that this sort of power came around once in an eon, and to serve it, to serve her...
A court that wouldn't just change the world. It would start the world over.
A court that could conquer this world- and any other it wished.
If it wished. If that woman on the plain desired to. And that was the question, wasn't it?”
Source: Empire of Storms
“Whitewash and blue cotton, and weary faces in the women’s wards; whitewash and brown fustian, and sullen, stupid looks in the men’s; this was all that Trevithic carried away in his brain that first day; - misery and whitewash, and a dull, choking atmosphere from which he was ashamed almost to escape into the open fields outside the town, across which his way led back to the station.”
Source: Jack the Giant Killer
“Whitewash on the forehead hardens the brain into a state of obstinacy, perhaps.”
Source: Great Expectations
“Whitewashed World (The Sonnet)
I once sent my sonnets for an official recognition,
They rejected me saying, I lack skill and significance.
It's a white people's world after all, like it or not,
We wouldn't want the little white poets to take offence!
My skin doesn't radiate the glory of talcum powder,
So I'm supposed to be thankful for the white hand-me-downs.
Mine is not to seek recognition in a whitewashed world,
Mine is to keep on struggling with my vigor's last ounce.
In a world where top white export is but oppression,
Everything is ten times less difficult if you are white.
A mermaid of color tickles the conquerors the wrong way,
White people's Nobel disproportionately goes to the whites.
Whether you recognize me or not, I neither care nor mind.
The reason I write this, so humankind becomes human and kind.”
Source: Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None
“Whitewashing the pump won't make the water pure.”
“Whiteys on The Moon
(Naskar's Version, 2749-2750)
There is no orient,
there is no occident,
there is only consciousness -
there is no global south,
there is no global north,
there is only human race.
And now that we've established
the ultimate human truth of the future,
let's talk some facts of the present -
we cannot establish a theoretical future,
no matter how profound or spiritual it sounds,
without first actively making amends for the past -
we cannot say we're all equal,
when clearly the crimesheet of the north
is a hundred times bloodier than the south,
when the bloodlust of the occident
makes oriental villains look like pickpockets -
you can put a hundred whiteys on the moon,
still it won't make up for the countless holocausts
you withheld from the history books,
while cleverly cherrypicking one little cleansing
that photoshops the colonial numbskulls
as the saviors of the world.”
Source: Nazmahal: Palace of Grace
“Whither am I going? To the New World. What to do? To gain honor? No, if I know my own heart. To get money? No: I am going to live to God, and to bring others so to do.”
Source: From August 7, 1771, to December 31, 1786
“Whither away, Bluebird, Whither away? The blast is chill, yet in the upper sky Thou still canst find the color of thy wing, The hue of May. Warbler, why speed, thy southern flight? ah, why, Thou, too, whose song first told us of the Spring? Whither away?”
Source: Poetical works
“Whither be the heart of Justice?
Lo, in stone, child. Lo, in stone.
Whither be the heart of Justice?
Lo, tis fast in stone.”
Source: Sheever's Journal, Diary of a Poison Master
“Whither depart the souls of the brave that die in the battle, Die in the lost, lost fight, for the cause that perishes with them?”
“Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?”
Source: On the Road
“Whither is intelligence? I will tell you. We have killed it – you and I.”
Source: Lamentations on the Nothingness of Being
“Whither shall I flee? To no country on earth that I know of where there is as much liberty as yet remains to me even in Virginia.”
“Whither should we aim if not towards God?”
“Whither thou goest, I will go; thy people shall be my people; whither thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried.”
“Whither thou goest, I will go; Where thou diest, will I die And there will I be buried: The Angel do so to me, and more also, If aught but death part thee and me.”
Source: Clockwork Princess
“Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it.”
Source: Siddhartha: An Indian Tale
“Whither, O god of wine, art thou hurrying me, whilst under thy all-powerful influence?”
“Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding,Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West,That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding,Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest?”
Source: Poetical Works Of Robert Brides Excluding The Eight Dramas
“Whitley Bay was my first experience of the seaside. I'd buy my bucket and spade, and beach ball, and all the shops were teeming with toys. I used to spend hours on the shuggy boats.”
“Whitman expressed the whole universe in his poetry and in his catalogues. That attitude almost defines what we call American romanticism, or American transcendentalism. I feel particularly close to them, because I am now out in the universe. I’m in a position to see nature from another point of view, to be outside the earth and see the big picture.”
“Whitman had a profound influence on me. That was during my sophomore year when I came down with a bad attack of Whitmanitis. But he did me a lot of good, and I think the influence is discoverable.”
“Whitman, you once told me, is democracy on the page, messy
and imperfect as we are in real life, which gave you hope
that we would one day make real life true democracy, ripe blossom,
pollen dusting every moment and person, each scampering mote of light.
This is why as you lay dying, I read “I Hear America Singing”
and knew you heard every word and could feel my hand on yours
though you were already moving toward other miracles than this life.
A sunflower followed your motion and a yellow dog stood guard.
You, who lived the notion that the sun belongs to each and every one,
beggars, dreamers, kings, all. You who believed banks could have hearts,
for god’s sake! You have left it to us, messy and imperfect
as we are and will be, to keep to the work side by side
and as long as it takes, all the while singing of miracles
just as Whitman and you taught us to do.”
“Whitney Houston came in. Someone dared me to do "the Gap act" on her. You know, the Gap act. So I went up to her like I didn't know who she was, and I said, 'Hi, I just wanted to let you know about our sale items and make sure to check out our new colors'. She looked at me like I was crazy.”
“Whitney Houston is my idol and my mentor and my dream forever, like she will always be my favorite artist, ever, on the planet. Like I don't think I'll ever feel that way about another artist.”
“Whitney Houston rear-ended a city bus with her sports car, but no one was hurt. She said she didn't know what happened. One minute she was concentrating on the big white line, and the next, boom!”
“Whitney Houston was a laser beam ... She always gave me better than what I asked for in the studio”
“Whitney Houston's voice was the very first voice I fell in love with. She was the voice that made me want to become a singer.”
“Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was constantly on my FM Walkman radio around that time. I think that made me cry because I associated it with absolutely no one.”
Source: Bossypants
“Whitney may be a complete madman and an absolute fucking wreck of a human being, but he gave me you," Draden said. "I'd still put a bullet in his head, but I'd thank him first.”
Source: Toxic Game
“Whitney plants viruses in us to force us to return home. [...] I knew sooner or later I wouldn't return, and I'd die from whatever they put in me.”
Source: Toxic Game
“Whitney proved to be a competent manufacturer, but wasn't an original inventor to any important degree. Thomas Blanchard was a true genius: his stock making machine was the daddy of all the industrial profiling machinery, like the 1870s universal milling machine, that was the especial American contribution to machining technology. By that time, the British conceded that machinery innovation had shifted to America.”