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Racism Quotes

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Racism Quotes

“Tony Blair a couple years ago was going around apologizing for everything. He apologized for the Irish potato famine. The Canadian government apologized for how it treated Indian school children.When is the Democratic Party going to apologize for being the biggest slave-holding-supporting institution on the planet and sticking with racism for the century after the abolition of slavery?”

“I want some help on this. I'm being very honest, i want some ideas, as somebody who was arrested 50 years ago fighting for Civil Rights trying to desegregate schools in Chicago, who spent his whole life fighting against racism, I want your ideas. What do you think we can do? What can we do?”

“The new racism, like God, works in mysterious ways and is quite effective in maintaining white privilege. For example, instead of saying as they used to say during the Jim Crow era that they do not want us as neighbors, they say things nowadays such as 'I am concerned about crime, property values and schools.'”

“To judge by what my children are learning in school, you'd think American history was 75 percent slavery and 25 percent everything else (and that 25 percent includes a large dollop of imperialism, racism, sexism and homophobia, leaving little time for Lincoln, Edison, Clay, Holmes, Alcott, Dickinson, Adams, Longfellow or Fulton).”

“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.”

“Psychotherapy makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that's not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong.”

“Racism in our countries is a fact in that the indian is not allowed to be a politician or aspire to being head of state. It has reached the point that 99% of the indigenous women have not gone to school. The indigenous are condemned to live in a situation designed to exterminate them. They receive a pittance of a salary, they neither speak nor write the language, politics dictates their situation. Is this slavery? I don't know what it's called. It is not the same as before because we are in modern times.”

“Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness, a weapon of mass destruction... racism, a weapon of mass destruction, fear, a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons and renew our commitment to quality public schools and dedicated teachers and good housing and quality health care and decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods.”

“Bad schools, crime, drugs, high taxes, the social security mess, racism, the health care ? crisis? unemployment, welfare state dependency, illegitimacy, the gap between rich and poor. What do these issues have in common? Politicians, the media, and our so-called leaders lie to us about them. They lie about the cause. They lie about the effect. They lie about the solutions.”

“Parents and schools should place great emphasis on the idea that it is all right to be different. Racism and all the other 'isms' grow from primitive tribalism, the instinctive hostility against those of another tribe, race, religion, nationality, class or whatever. You are a lucky child if your parents taught you to accept diversity.”

“Brown v. Board of Education, 1954: I’m sure you’ve heard of this one. If you live in the South and go to a diverse school, this is why. This was the case that said racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. The results: The schools began to mix. What’s really interesting about this case, though, something rarely discussed, is that it’s actually a pretty racist idea. I mean, what it basically suggests is that Black kids need a fair shot, and a fair shot is in White schools. I mean, why weren’t there any White kids integrating into Black schools? The assumption was that Black kids weren’t as intelligent because they weren’t around White kids, as if the mere presence of White kids would make Black kids better. Not. True. A good school is a good school, whether there are White people there or not. Oh, and of course people were pissed about this.”

“There are now a number of demands being made on teachers which challenge both your courage to be flexible and your courage to remain faithful to ideals which are good. I will try to deal with just two of these demands. The first one demands flexibility. It asks you to recognize that Negro children in this society—and white children also—are being taught biased, edited, and ultimately racist versions of American history and culture. It is not enough to pay lip service to the idea of racial harmony and equality. We must refuse any longer to accept the distorted view of our roots and our past in this country. As taught in our textbooks, this history reinforces in white children the notion that they are superior and the only creators of this country, and it reinforces in black children the notion that they are inferior and made no contributions. It may be true that most blacks came here as slaves, but the first of them were here as free men, and gave their lives in the struggle to win independence for this nation. They fought as well as any one else during the civil war; they played their part in the opening of the American West; they helped plan and lay out some of our major American cities; they developed the only indigenous form of American music; they made notable contributions to scientific research; they are to be found in the growth and development of the American musical and dramatic stage; and the best of their writing ranks with the best that has been done in America. This is by no means all, but then I am by no means an historian. In any case, the question is not whether they should have done more. The miracle is that in the circumstances of their history here they could have done so much. It is because of racism, it is because the dominant value judgments in this society are white, and it is because a consistently poor estimate has been placed on the quality and extent of Negro effort—it is for all these reasons that the true story of the Negro in America is not told in our history books. And it is for all these reasons that historians continue to tell lies, continue to avert their eyes, and continue to retard the progress of civility, decency, and human dignity in our society. It is time, then, to give up that old rigid stance. For, however comforting it may be to some, it is a delusion, and it is a violation of the right of all young minds to know the truth and to be free. Organized teachers can play a major role in the effort to liberate American history books. They can join those who are making an effort to bring truth into the schools through a total revision of the textbooks. Where good texts are not in existence, teachers must bring in supplementary material to the classes. And they themselves can make studies of Negro history and culture.”

“No one then considered the privilege implied in the fact that white literature was the core curriculum and black literature was the elective. And with no people of color in the student body, it was as if we were studying an ancient civilization with no connection to our lives.”

“Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies.”