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Racial Discrimination Quotes

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Racial Discrimination Quotes

“The problems of the school, we have been told, are intimately related to those of the city. Commissioner [of Education Harold] Howe said that we cannot have good schools if we have bad cities. I would agree with this statement, but I would carry it a step further: We cannot have good cities unless we have a good nation. And to have a good nation, we must face, once and for all, the problems of poverty and race. Only through the formulation of a national program to eliminate poverty and racial discrimination can we lay the basis for a good, let alone a great, society.”

SchoolCitiesEducationPovertyRacial DiscriminationSociety Racism
Book:Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
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“I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.”

InspirationInspirational QuotesStrengthInspirational LifeSelf AwarenessInspirational AttitudeSelf WorthMultiracialRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingMixed RaceInterracial
Author:C. JoyBell C.
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“If origin defines race, then we are all Africans – we are all black.”

LifeInspirationalPhilosophyTruthRaceEvolutionWords Of WisdomRacismBrainy QuotesHumanismHumanitarianAfrican AmericanHuman LifeHuman RaceHumanistBlack PeopleAfricaHumanitarianismBlack HistoryRace RelationsLove And KindnessRace And Racism In AmericaSocial PsychologyHumanismoAfricanHumanitarian CrisisRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial PrejudiceOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesHumanitarian EffortsHumanitarian InterventionRacial InjusticeRacesRacial EqualityRace IssuesRacial IdentityHumanitariansHumanitarian ActivitiesRace Of LifeRacial SuperiorityOrigin Of Human Rights
Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction.”

LifeInspirationalPhilosophyCharacterTruthRaceEvolutionWords Of WisdomRacismBrainy QuotesHuman RightsHumanismHumanitarianAfrican AmericanHuman LifeHuman RaceSentimentsHumanistBlack PeopleAfricaHumanitarianismHumanity And SocietyBlack HistoryRace RelationsLove And KindnessRace And Racism In AmericaSocial PsychologyHumanismoAmbitionsAfricanHumanitarian CrisisRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial PrejudiceOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesHumanitarian EffortsHumanitarian InterventionRacial InjusticeRacesRacial EqualityRace IssuesRacial IdentityHumanitariansHumanitarian ActivitiesRace Of LifeRacial SuperiorityOrigin Of Human Rights
Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“In the biological sense, race does not exist.”

LifeInspirationalPhilosophyCharacterTruthRaceEvolutionWords Of WisdomRacismBrainy QuotesHuman RightsHumanismHumanitarianAfrican AmericanHuman LifeHuman RaceSentimentsHumanistBlack PeopleAfricaHumanitarianismHumanity And SocietyBlack HistoryRace RelationsLove And KindnessRace And Racism In AmericaSocial PsychologyHumanismoAmbitionsAfricanHumanitarian CrisisRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial PrejudiceOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesHumanitarian EffortsHumanitarian InterventionRacial InjusticeRacesRacial EqualityRace IssuesRacial IdentityHumanitariansHumanitarian ActivitiesRace Of LifeRacial SuperiorityOrigin Of Human Rights
Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.”

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Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“Call up the ever-pure, the effulgent and the ever-radiant character of true humanism in yourself and in others, and no racism shall have the power to thrive in such society even for a few seconds.”

LifeInspirationalPhilosophyCharacterTruthRaceEvolutionWords Of WisdomRacismBrainy QuotesHuman RightsHumanismHumanitarianAfrican AmericanHuman LifeHuman RaceSentimentsHumanistBlack PeopleAfricaHumanitarianismHumanity And SocietyBlack HistoryRace RelationsLove And KindnessRace And Racism In AmericaSocial PsychologyHumanismoAmbitionsAfricanHumanitarian CrisisRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial PrejudiceOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesHumanitarian EffortsHumanitarian InterventionRacial InjusticeRacesRacial EqualityRace IssuesRacial IdentityHumanitariansHumanitarian ActivitiesRace Of LifeRacial SuperiorityOrigin Of Human Rights
Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“If not as a true human, let me tell you as a Biologist, color of the skin does not define an individual’s intelligence – it does not define an individual’s ambitions - it does not define an individual’s dreams – and above all, it does not define an individual’s character.”

LifeInspirationalPhilosophyCharacterTruthRaceEvolutionWords Of WisdomRacismBrainy QuotesHuman RightsHumanismHumanitarianAfrican AmericanHuman LifeHuman RaceSentimentsHumanistBlack PeopleAfricaHumanitarianismHumanity And SocietyBlack HistoryRace RelationsLove And KindnessRace And Racism In AmericaSocial PsychologyHumanismoAmbitionsAfricanHumanitarian CrisisRacial DiscriminationRacial ProfilingRacial PrejudiceOrigin Of LifeOrigin Of SpeciesHumanitarian EffortsHumanitarian InterventionRacial InjusticeRacesRacial EqualityRace IssuesRacial IdentityHumanitariansHumanitarian ActivitiesRace Of LifeRacial SuperiorityOrigin Of Human Rights
Book:We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism
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“Contrary moods of violence, withdrawal, separatism, and nationalism conform to a theory of black history that Rustin has developed, a theory that makes a great deal of sense to anyone familiar with the story of the black man in white America, especially the post-slavery part of the story. It is a cyclical theory. The model of the cycle begins with an upsurge of of hopes and expectations inspired by bold promises and commitments. This is followed by a phase of disappointed hopes and betrayed promises, which is followed in turn by frustration, despair, withdrawal, and separatism of one variety or another. Each phase produces leaders and doctrines that accommodate the accompanying mood. The third phase takes many forms, but some of them invariably attract support from reactionary elements of white society.”

HopeRacismBetrayalCivil RightsCyclesAfrican AmericansBlacksBlack HistoryRacial DiscriminationSeparatism
Book:Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
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“En gång i världen var USA det förlovade landet i världen för invandrare som vi. Vi har slitit som djur av tvång och av tacksamhet, och se hur de behandlar oss nu! Utlänningar blir behandlade som kriminella, om det ska vara vår tids Amerika åker jag hellre tillbaka till Indien.”

RacistAmerican DreamDiversity And InclusionRacism In AmericaRacial DiscriminationRacism And CultureImmigrant ExperienceUsa ImmigrationThe Promise Of A Better Life
Author:Marc Levy
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“pp. 87-88: The usual way in which the media and politicians talk about race discrimination in the job market is to compare the percentage of Africans or Latins in a given occupation with the percentage of Europeans. This makes the situation look bad. The 2014–2018 American Community Survey found that Africans, at 13 percent of the population, accounted for only 3.6 percent of CEOs, 3.7 percent of physical scientists, 4.4 percent of civil engineers, 5.1 percent of physicians, and 5.2 percent of lawyers. Latin percentages in those prestigious occupations ranged from 5.3 to 7.6 percent, but Latins are almost 18 percent of the population, so their underrepresentation was nearly the same. The picture flips when race differences in cognitive ability and job performance are taken into account. Africans and Latins get through the educational pipeline with preferential treatment in admissions to colleges and to professional programs. Their mean IQs in occupations across the range from unskilled to those requiring advanced degrees are substantially lower than the mean IQs for Europeans in the same occupations. Race differences in measures of on-the-job performance are commensurate with the differences in cognitive ability. I think it is fair to conclude that the American job market is indeed racially biased. A detached observer might even call it systemic racism. The American job market systemically discriminates in favor of racial minorities other than Asians.”

Affirmative ActionRacial DiscriminationAnti White Discrimination
Book:Facing Reality: Two Truths about Race in America
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“The students on campuses with such a [Confederate] statue had higher levels of implicit racial bias. This finding speaks to the haunting effects of historical expressions of racism. Not only do these statues cause pain for many black students and faculty; they may help to sustain implicit anti-black bias.”

RaceRacismStatuesRacial DiscriminationConfederacyConfederate Statues
Book:Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides - Library Edition
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“It's not the fact that some people disagree with the protests. That is as much a right as the protests themselves. It is the hateful, profane, condescending way some have expressed their discontent that baffles me. How do you criticize actions you've deemed disrespectful and divisive and an affront to civilized behavior with rhetoric to the same end? That's like the devil judging the Grim Reaper for harvesting souls.”

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Author:Carlos Wallace
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“It may provide emotional release "to think black, dress black, eat black, and buy black," but it places one on a reactionary course. The real problems, from which all this is escape, are those of employment, wages, housing, health, education, and they are not to be solved by withdrawal and fantasy. They can only be solved in alliance with elements from the majority of the electorate, and the cement for such a coalition is not love but mutual interest. The way lies through nonviolence, integration, and coalition politics.”

Civil RightsAfrican AmericansBlacksSystemic RacismRacial DiscriminationBayard Rustin
Book:Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
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“Susan’s and Jennifer’s job searches are likely made harder by the color of their skin. In the early 2000s, researchers in Chicago and Boston mailed out fake résumés to hundreds of employers, varying only the names of the applicants, but choosing names that would be seen as identifiably black or white. Strikingly, “Emily” and “Brendan” were 50 percent more likely to get called for an interview than “Lakisha” and “Jamal.” A few years later, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin conducted a similar study in Milwaukee, but with a unique twist. She recruited two black and two white actors (college students, posing as high school graduates) who were as similar as possible in every way. She sent these “job applicants” out in pairs, with virtually identical fake résumés, to apply for entry-level jobs. Her twist was to instruct one of the white and one of the black applicants to tell employers that they had a felony conviction and had just been released from prison the month before. Even the researcher was surprised by what she found: the white applicant with a felony conviction was more likely to get a positive response from a prospective employer than the black applicant with no criminal record. When the study was replicated in New York City a few years later, she and her colleagues saw similar results for Latino applicants relative to whites.”

DiscriminationRacism In AmericaWhite PrivilegeRacial Discrimination20152004EeocLabor Markets
Book:$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America
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“There are hundreds of political prisoners right now in America’s jails who were so taken by Malcolm [X’s} spirit that they became warriors and the powers that be understood them as warriors. They knew that a lot of these other middle-class [black] leaders were not warriors; they were professionals; they were careerists. But these warriors had callings, and they have paid an incalculable and immeasurable price in those cells.”

LeadershipRacismAfrican AmericansPolitical PhilosophyWarriorsRacial DiscriminationBlack History MonthMass IncarcerationAfrican American HistoryPolitical PrisonersMartyrsFreedom FightersMalcolm XPrison ReformAfrican American MenConscientious ObjectionBlack Liberation MovementCareeristsBlack RevolutionariesBlack LeadershipBlack Middle ClassBlack ProphetsIndustrial Prison ComplexPolitical Advocacy
Book:Black Prophetic Fire
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“someone in a high place - the mayor, chief of police, or other official - would receive information that a neighboring city was already in flames and that carloads of armed black men were coming to attack this city. This happened in Cedar Rapids when Des Moines was allegedly in flames. It happened in Ardmore, Oklahoma, and in Fort Worth, Texas, when it was alleged that Oklahoma City was in flames and carloads were converging on those cities. It happened in Reno and other western cities, when Oakland, California, was supposed to be in flames. It happened in Roanoke when Richmond, Virginia, was supposed to be in flames.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Scattered Shadows: A Memoir of Blindness and Vision
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“But there are differences. The social studies I’ve read …” “They don’t deal with any basic difference in human nature between black and white,” I said. “They only study the effects of environment on human nature. You place the white man in the ghetto, deprive him of educational advantages, arrange it so he has to struggle hard to fulfill his instinct for self-respect, give him little physical privacy and less leisure, and he would after a time assume the same characteristics you attach to the Negro. These characteristics don’t spring from whiteness or blackness, but from a man’s conditioning.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“What fragmented individualism really meant was what happened to a black man who tried to make it in this society: in order to succeed, he had to become an imitation white man - dress white, talk white, think white, express the values of middle-class white culture (at least when he was in the presence of white men). Implied in all this was the hiding, the denial, of his selfhood, his negritude, his culture, as though they were somehow shameful. If he succeeded, he was an alienated marginal man - alienated from the strength of his culture and from fellow black men, and never able, of course, to become that imitation white man because he bore the pigment that made the white man view him as intrinsically other.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“The music consumed in its blatant rhythm all other rhythms, even that of the heartbeat. I wondered how all this would look to the casual observer, or to the whites in their homes. “The niggers are whooping it up over on Mobile Street tonight,” they might say. “They’re happy.” Or, as one scholar put it, “Despite their lowly status, they are capable of living jubilantly.” Would they see the immense melancholy that hung over the quarter, so oppressive that men had to dull their sensibilities in noise or wine or sex or gluttony in order to escape it? The laughter had to be gross or it would turn to sobs, and to sob would be to realize, and to realize would be to despair. So the noise poured forth like a jazzed-up fugue, louder and louder to cover the whisper in every man’s soul. “You are black. You are condemned.” This is what the white man mistook for “jubilant living” and called “whooping it up.” This is how the white man can say, “They live like dogs,” never realizing why they must, to save themselves, shout, get drunk, shake the hip, pour pleasures into bellies deprived of happiness. Otherwise, the sounds from the quarter would lose order and rhythm and become wails.”

Us HistoryRacial DiscriminationTags 1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“I must have had a dozen rides that evening. They blear into a nightmare, the one scarcely distinguishable from the other. It quickly became obvious why they picked me up. All but two picked me up the way they would pick up a pornographic photograph or book - except that this was verbal pornography. With a Negro, they assumed they need give no semblance of self-respect or respectability. The visual element entered into it. In a car at night visibility is reduced. A man will reveal himself in the dark, which gives the illusion of anonymity, more than he will in the bright light. Some were shamelessly open, some shamelessly subtle. All showed morbid curiosity about the sexual life of the Negro, and all had, at base, the same stereotyped image of the Negro as an inexhaustible sex-machine with oversized genitals and a vast store of experiences, immensely varied. They appeared to think that the Negro has done all of those “special” things they themselves have never dared to do. They carried the conversations into depths of depravity.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“After the first difficulties in Rochester, New York, I was asked to consult with community leaders. I went and spoke for quite a long time. The leaders were concerned and sincere men. The first question one of them asked after I talked was: “Well, Mr. Griffin, what is the first thing we should do now?” I told him that I had been asked to come and consult with community leaders, and yet I was sitting in a room full of white men. The white man who had asked the question slapped his forehead in real chagrin. “It never occurred to me to ask any of them," he said apologetically.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“We need a conversion of morals,” the elderly man said. “Not just superficially, but profoundly. And in both races. We need a great saint - some enlightened common sense. Otherwise, we’ll never have the right answers when the pressure groups - those racists, super-patriots, whatever you want to call them - tag every move toward racial justice as communist-inspired, Zionist-inspired, Illuminati-inspired, Satan-inspired … part of some secret conspiracy to overthrow the Christian civilization.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“He told me how all of the white men in the region craved colored girls. He said he hired a lot of them both for housework and in his business. “And I guarantee you, I’ve had it in every one of them before they ever got on the payroll.” A pause. Silence above humming tires on the hot-top road. “What do you think of that?” “Surely some refuse,” I suggested cautiously. “Not if they want to eat - or feed their kids,” he snorted. “If they don’t put out, they don’t get the job.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“It was now pointed out that the black male child, even in a black school using white textbooks, could early come to the conclusion that all the heroes in history were white men. Furthermore, with the exception of nationally known black civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and others, the black male child frequently saw the adult black male as ineffectual and defeated. The old picture of the white man leading the black man by the hand toward the solution to his problems again gave the black male child a view of the adult black male as something not worth becoming, and killed his spirit and his will to become an adult, problem-solving individual.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“Customers came - whites, Negroes and Latin Americans. Well-dressed tourists mingled with the derelicts of the quarter. When we shined their shoes we talked. The whites, especially the tourists, had no reticence before us, and no shame since we were Negroes. Some wanted to know where they could find girls, wanted us to get Negro girls for them. We learned to spot these from the moment they sat down, for they were immediately friendly and treated us with the warmth and courtesy of equals. I mentioned this to Sterling. “Yeah, when they want to sin, they’re very democratic,” he said.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“Yes, and then it’s these things that cause the whites to say we’re not worthy of first-class citizenship.” “Ah …” He dropped his hands to his sides hard in frustration. “Isn’t it so? They make it impossible for us to earn, to pay much in taxes because we haven’t much in income, and then they say that because they pay most of the taxes, they have the right to have things like they want. It’s a vicious circle, Mr. Griffin, and I don’t know how we’ll get out of it. They put us low, and then blame us for being down there and say that since we are low, we can’t deserve our rights.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“Forgetting myself for a moment, I stopped to study the menu that was elegantly exposed in a show window. I read, realizing that a few days earlier I could have gone in and ordered anything on the menu. But now, though I was the same person with the same appetite, the same appreciation and even the same wallet, no power on earth could get me inside this place for a meal. I recalled hearing some Negro say, “You can live here all your life, but you’ll never get inside one of the great restaurants except as a kitchen boy.” The Negro often dreams of things separated from him only by a door, knowing that he is forever cut off from experiencing them.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“The great danger in the South comes precisely from the fact that the public is not informed. Newspapers shirk notoriously their editorial responsibilities and print what they think their readers want. They lean with the prevailing winds and employ every fallacy of logic in order to editorialize harmoniously with popular prejudices. They also keep a close eye on possible economic reprisals from the Councils and the Klans, plus other superpatriotic groups who bring pressure to bear on the newspapers’ advertisers. In addition, most adhere to the long-standing conspiracy of silence about anything remotely favorable to the Negro. His achievements are carefully excluded or, when they demand attention, are handled with the greatest care to avoid the impression that anything good the individual Negro does is typical of his race.”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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“In no instance were these reports true or were any of these cities actually in flames. But the result was immediate action on the part of white officials. They got in contact with important community and industrial leaders. Riot control measures were ordered into effect. Civilians armed themselves for the coming attack and stationed themselves at strategic points. In most cases many whites became aware of the “danger” and no local black person had any idea what was going on,”

Us HistoryRacial Discrimination1959
Book:Black Like Me
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