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Racism Quotes

Browse 3161 quotes about Racism.

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Racism Quotes

“The War on Drugs, cloaked in race-neutral language, offered whites opposed to racial reform a unique opportunity to express their hostility toward blacks and black progress, without being exposed to the charge of racism.”

WarOpportunityLanguageBlackRaceProgressDrugUniqueRacismReformExposedHostilityWar On DrugsUnique Opportunities
Book:The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness
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“Most liberal-minded folk would like to think that since they are not hostile to people of a different race, racism is a disease of the uneducated, unenlightened and socially backward - football hooligans, British National Party supporters, policemen. You could call this the Bad Guy Theory. But the Bad Guy Theory does not explain why Indian-heritage children do nearly twice as well as Pakistani-heritage children at GCSE.”

PeopleThinkingWellsChildrenDoeDifferentGuyPartyRaceFootballTheoryDiseaseRacismFolksBritishIndianHeritageSupporterHostileBad GuysPolicemenUneducatedDifferent Races
Author:Trevor Phillips
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“I am not a conservative but I have spoken out for years against the staggering amount blind hatred directed at black conservatives by liberals. Liberals are shockingly quick to demean and dismiss brilliant black people like Rice, Carson, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), Professor Walter E. Williams and economist Thomas Sowell because they don't fit into the role they have carved out for a black person in America. Black Americans must be obedient liberals on all things or risk being called a race traitor or an Uncle Tom.”

PeopleYearsPersonsAmericaBlackJusticeRaceEducationRolesRiskAmountFitRacismAll ThingsHatredBlindCourtConservativeBrilliantSupremeProfessorsBlack PeopleCensorshipTomsSenatorsUnclesSupreme CourtEconomistRiceObedientTraitorStaggeringBlack PersonSupreme Court JusticeCourt JusticeUncle Tom
Author:Juan Williams
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“In a manner akin to the influence of Tiger Woods on the other side of the Atlantic, Thierry Henry has helped kick down a few of the remaining bigoted stereotypes. Through his undisputable class and dignity, Henry has made a deep-seated difference to race relations in this country. Racism will flounder whenever white children grow up with a black man as their hero. That so few comment on Henry's colour is a silent tribute to his impact.”

MenChildrenMadeCountryGrowsSidesBlackDifferencesWhiteRaceClassGrowing UpInfluenceFootballHeroRacismDignityRelationImpactSilentWoodsSoccerAnalysisKicksColourCommentStereotypeTigersRace RelationsTribute
Author:Pete Gill
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“White hate crimes, white hate speech. I still try to claim I wasn't brought up to hate. But hate isn't the half of it. I grew up in the vast encircling presumption of whiteness - that primary quality of being which knows itself, its passions, only against an otherness that has to be dehumanized. I grew up in white silence that was utterly obsessional. Race was the theme whatever the topic.”

KnowsTryingStillsHatePassionWhiteRaceHalfSilenceQualityCrimeGrewSpeechGrew UpRacismClaimsPrimariesThemeTopicsHate CrimePresumptionWhitenessOthernessHate Speech
Author:Adrienne Rich
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“in race relations, the single gesture and the single individual are more often than not doomed to failure. Only the group and the long-term, undeviating policy make much headway. ... if you want to make the world a better place, the first thing you must accept is the fact that you cannot transcend your limitations as an individual.”

IfsWorldWantFirstsLongFactsIndividualTermRaceAcceptingGroupsPolicyRacismRelationLimitationLong TermGesturesDoomedBetter PlaceRace Relations
Book:Color blind: a white woman looks at the Negro
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“The colored woman of to-day occupies, one may say, a unique position in this country. In a period of itself transitional and unsettled, her status seems one of the least ascertainable and definitive of all the forces which make for our civilization. She is confronted by both a woman question and a race problem.”

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Book:The Voice of Anna Julia Cooper: Including A Voice from the South and Other Important Essays, Papers, and Letters
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“Many think, because your skins are tinged with a sable hue, that you are an inferior race of beings; but God does not consider you as such. ... he hath made all men free and equal. Then why should one worm say to another, 'Keep you down there, while I sit up yonder; for I am better than thou?”

ThinkingMenShouldDoeMadeGodFreedomRaceLordEqualRacismSkinsEqualityAfrican AmericanInferiorsConsideringBlack WomenWormsEqual RightsHueAnti Racist
Author:Maria W. Stewart
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“Ironically, white America will catapult books about race to the top of the best-seller list, even as racism remains a national open wound. Obsession ain't solution, however, because reading even at its most intense and verisimilitudinous is vicarious, and once you close the book you're off the hook.”

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Book:Skin Deep: Black Women & White Women Write About Race
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“One of the big mistakes they made in Europe is that the circumstances in which you most frequently read or hear the word "race" or "racism" in Europe applies to Muslims. Which is not a race. It is a religion. You can convert to this. You cannot convert your race. I could become a Muslim. I could not become a Chinese person or a black person. So they constantly use that in Europe.”

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Author:Fran Lebowitz
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“It's so hard for me to even acknowledge America without talking about race. If you look at our society, if you look at the prisons, if you look at the poverty and which side of the line the majority of people are, we have to acknowledge how we divide ourselves up, that there's racism alive in this country. And it's not in the law. It's in our minds. And that's what we have to actively battle.”

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Author:Dave Matthews
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“The parallel between antifeminism and race prejudice is striking. The same underlying motives appear to be at work, namely fear, jealousy, feelings of insecurity, fear of economic competition, guilt feelings, and the like. Many of the leaders of the feminist movement in the nineteenth-century United States clearly understood the similarity of the motives at work in antifeminism and race discrimination and associated themselves with the anti slavery movement.”

StatesFeelingsUnitedRaceLeaderUnited StatesEconomicCenturyMovementRacismUnderstoodPrejudiceSlaveryGuiltCompetitionFeministDiscriminationMotiveInsecuritySexismParallelsSimilarityNineteenth CenturyFeminist MovementAnti SlaveryGuilt FeelingsEconomic Competition
Author:Ashley Montagu
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“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”

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Book:The writings of Thomas Jefferson: being his autobiography, correspondence, reports, messages, addresses, and other writings, official and private
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“Few white citizens are acquainted with blacks other than those projected by the media and the so--called educational system, whichis nothing more than a system of rewards and punishments based upon one's ability to pledge loyalty oaths to Anglo culture. The media and the "educational system" are the prime sources of racism in the United States.”

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Author:Ishmael Reed
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“I'M HOPEFUL, because I know that while we still have race issues in America, we enjoy a much different normal than those of our parents and grandparents. I see it in my personal relationships with teammates, friends and mentors. And it's a beautiful thing.”

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Book:Under Our Skin: Getting Real about Race. Getting Free from the Fears and Frustrations that Divide Us.
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“The notion that black folks have nothing to learn from scholarship that may reflect racial or racist biases is dangerous. It promotes closed-mindedness and a narrow understanding of knowledge to hold that "race" is such an overwhelming concept that it negates the validity of any insights contained in a work that may have some racist or sexist aspects.”

MayUnderstandingBlackRaceDangerousRacismConceptsAspectNotionFolksInsightAfrican AmericanRacistOverwhelmingScholarshipValiditySexist
Author:Bell Hooks
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“To have one's race brutally treated for so many years, even after the end of slavery and segregation, people are going to rise up with violence to attain what they believe is rightfully theirs. The most important thing at this time is raising the awareness of everyone; people need to be educated everywhere about all aspects of racism and how it affects people still today.”

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Author:Assata Shakur
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“The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.”

PeopleHumansReasonPlayFeelingsHappensHateBornRaceRacismFeel GoodHuman RaceRacistAbout Yourself
Author:Toni Morrison
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“Critical Race Theory offers of discrimination frameworks as ways of understanding and eradicating racism. The focus on "discrimination" as the way to understand racism in the US has meant that racism is considered a question of discriminatory intentions - whether or not somebody intentionally left someone out or did something harmful because of their biased feelings about a person's race. This focus on individual racists with bad ideas hides the reality that racism exists wherever conditions of racialized maldistribution exist.”

WayPersonsIdeasFeelingsRealityIndividualLeftUnderstandingRaceFocusConditionsTheoryOffersRacismIntentionCriticalDiscriminationRacistFrameworkBad IdeasBiased
Author:Dean Spade
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“It is notable how little empathy is cultivated or valued in our society. I put this down to our traditional racism and obsessive sectarianism. Even so, one would think that we would be encouraged to project ourselves into the character of someone of a different race or class, if only to be able to control him. But no effort is made.”

IfsThinkingLittlesMadeDifferentCharacterWould BeAbleEffortRaceClassProjectsEmpathyRacismTraditionalOur SocietyNotableObsessiveSectarianismBe EncouragedDifferent Races
Book:Screening history
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“America is supposed to pride itself on freedom of religion, race, and class. It's something that is carried on from ignorance and territorialism. I don't know if it's a transcendental pre-colonial mentality but I don't see too many other races of people trippin' about who is coming in and coming out. I think it's primarily racism disguised as class wars.”

PeopleIfsThinkingKnowsWarAmericaRaceClassIgnorancePrideRacismComing OutMentalityTranscendentalFreedom Of Religion
Author:Myka 9
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“The black conservative is responsible for making people question an idea that racism must be extinct before black people can overcome. Understanding that our goal is to thrive despite racism rather than fetishizing it is, in fact, the central ideological plank of people deemed "black conservatives." This is a coherent position, but that can be hard to perceive, given the way that race has been discussed in our land over the past 40 years or so.”

PeopleWayYearsHas BeensIdeasHardFactsPastGivenUnderstandingGoalBlackRaceLandPositionRacismOvercomingResponsibleConservativeDespitePerceiveThriveBlack PeopleIdeologicalOver The Past
Author:John H. McWhorter
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“Patriotism at the expense of another nation is as wicked as racism at the expense of another race. . . Let us resolve to be patriots always, nationalists never. Let us love our country, but pledge allegiance to the earth and to the flora and fauna and human life that it supports - one planet indivisible, with clean air,... soil and water; with liberty, justice and peace for all.”

LoveLifeHumansCountryEarthNationsPeaceWaterJusticeFreedomRaceLibertySupportAirPlanetsRacismCleanOur CountryHuman LifeSoilWickedNationalismResolvePatrioticExpensesPatriotPledgeAllegiancePeace And JusticeIndivisibleFloraClean AirIt SupportFlora And Fauna
Author:William Sloane Coffin
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“News footage came on the TV during dinner of bloody bodies coming back from battle in Vietnam, or the race riots in the South, people getting hosed in Selma, Alabama, or the Biafra war, where I got my name. In my household, it was explained and discussed with the children, as a way of educating us from when we first started grade school why racism and war were wrong, what this all really means.”

PeopleWayFirstsMeanChildrenWarBodySchoolNamesRaceTvsBattleNewsRacismSouthDinnerGradesVietnamHouseholdBloodyComing BackReally MeanRiotAlabamaGrades In SchoolRace Riots
Author:Jello Biafra
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“Because I know that the early Greeks and Romans and the early Europeans at that age did not see racism as we see it now - because racism was created to justify slavery to build the capital for capitalism - and back in the day they respected talent over race. We had an African Pope in the late 5th century, we had an African Emperor of Rome, and early church Fathers were black.”

KnowsAgeFatherBlackChurchRaceCenturyTalentLateRacismCapitalismSlaveryGreekJustifyRomePopeEmperorBack In The DayChurch Fathers
Author:Immortal Technique
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“I get that racism exists, but it's not a catalyst for my content. I don't need to talk about race to have material. My style of comedy is more self-deprecating. I think that makes me more relatable. When you deal with 'topics' - race, white versus black - you're not separating from the pack. You're doing what everybody else is doing.”

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Author:Kevin Hart
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“I don't know what to say about Asians. I think everyone is "racist," to differing degrees, in that everyone's brain will automatically associate information with other information, based on the information they are looking at (for example skin color, bone structure), but I think focusing on race in any manner that isn't neutral or self-aware probably increases racism.”

ThinkingKnowsSelfRaceBrainInformationExampleColorDegreesRacismSkinsIncreaseStructureBonesRacistAssociatesSkin Color
Author:Tao Lin
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“Of course, intersectionality theory is a confused muddle. It fights racism and sexism by classifying everyone according to race and sex. It views race and gender privilege as the root of all evil, while ignoring the role played by dogmatic ideologies held by all genders. And it is unfalsifiable - to its adherents, criticism and rejection of the theory actually demonstrate its truth, by showing how deeply we all have internalized our oppression.”

FightingCoursesEvilSexViewsRaceRolesTheoryRacismRootsCriticismPrivilegeGenderOppressionIdeologyRejectionConfusedSexismDogmaticIntersectionalityMuddleClassifyingRace And Gender
Author:Christina Hoff Sommers
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