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Segregation Quotes

Browse 460 quotes about Segregation.

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Segregation Quotes

“It is often a puzzle for foreigners why the United States has such a dismal performance when it comes to murder, guns, and mental illness, all features of American life that, when compared to most of the other wealthy countries, are so awful they do not require further documentation. You might wonder how those bad results square with America’s relatively strong performances on most social capital indices, such as trust, cooperation, and charitable philanthropy; on philanthropy, we even rate as the global number one. The truth is that those positive and negative facets are two sides of the same coin: Cooperation is very often furthered by segregating those who do not fit in. That creates some superclusters of cooperation among the quality cooperators and a fair amount of chaos and dysfunctionality elsewhere.”

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Book:The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream
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“Public education is not broken. It is not failing or declining. The diagnosis is wrong, and the solutions of the corporate reformers are wrong. Our urban schools are in trouble because of concentrated poverty and racial segregation. But public education is not ‘broken.’ Public education is in a crisis only so far as society is and only so far as this new narrative of crisis has destabilized it.”

EducationPovertyBrokenRacismCorporationsWrongSegregationPublic EducationCorporate Greed
Book:Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America's Public Schools
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“When I arrived at this all-white school that first day, all the white parents rushed in and pulled out their kids. They didn't want their children going to school with me. But why? I didn't understand. They had never met or even seen me before now, so how could they know what kind of person I was? But none of that mattered. I don't think they even saw a child. All they saw was the color of my skin. I was black, and that meant I didn't matter.”

ChildrenRacismGirlsIntegrationAfrican AmericansBlacksSegregationSchoolsRuby Bridges
Book:This Is Your Time
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“UNDIVIDED I am for One world undivided. One world without fear and corruption. One world ruled by Truth and Justice. I am for One peaceful world for all, Where hate has been overcome by love, And everyone is guided only By their conscience.”

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Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“It wasn't just this street that she was afraid of or that was bad. It was any street where people were packed together like sardines in a can. And it wasn't just this city. It was any city where they set up a line and say black folks stay on this side and white folks on this side, so that the black folks were crammed on top of each other—jammed and packed and forced into the smallest possible space until they were completely cut off from light and air. It was any place where the women had to work to support the families because the men couldn't get jobs and the men got bored and pulled out and the kids were left without proper homes because there was nobody around to put a heart into it. Yes. It was any place where people were so damn poor they didn't have time to do anything but work, and their bodies were the only source of relief from the pressure under which they lived; and where the crowding together made the young girls wise beyond their years. It all added up to the same thing, she decided—white people. She hated them. She would always hate them.”

CitiesPovertyRacismAfrican AmericansBlacksSegregationRace RelationsWhitesNeighborhoodsOvercrowding
Book:The Street
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“I come from a land whose democracy from the very beginning has been tainted with race prejudice born of slavery, and whose richness has been poured through the narrow channels of greed into the hands of the few. I come to the Second International Writers Congress representing my country, America, but most especially the Negro peoples of America, and the poor peoples of America—because I am both a Negro and poor. And that combination of color and of poverty gives me the right then to speak for the most oppressed group in America, that group that has known so little of American democracy, the fifteen million Negroes who dwell within our borders. We are the people who have long known in actual practice the meaning of the word Fascism—for the American attitude towards us has always been one of economic and social discrimination: in many states of our country Negroes are not permitted to vote or to hold political office. In some sections freedom of movement is greatly hindered, especially if we happen to be sharecroppers on the cotton farms of the South. All over America we know what it is to be refused admittance to schools and colleges, to theatres and concert halls, to hotels and restaurants. We know Jim Crow cars, race riots, lynchings, we know the sorrows of the nine Scottsboro boys, innocent young Negroes imprisoned some six years now for a crime that even the trial judge declared them not guilty of having committed, and for which some of them have not yet come to trial. Yes, we Negroes in America do not have to be told what Fascism is in action. We know. Its theories of Nordic supremacy and economic suppression have long been realities to us.”

AmericaRacePovertyRacismDiscriminationFascismAfrican AmericansBlacksSegregationRace Relations
Book:Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings
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“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.”

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Book:Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You
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“To accept passively an unjust system is to coöperate with that system; thereby the oppressed become as evil as the oppressor. Nocoöperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is coöperation with good. The oppressed must never allow the conscience of the oppressor to slumber. Religion reminds every man that he is his brother's keeper. To accept injustice or segregation passively is to say to the oppressor that his actions are morally right. It is a way of allowing his conscience to fall asleep.”

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Book:Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story
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“People nowadays talk about the world's problems like they're reading lines off a teleprompter. They recite what they're told and echo it without thinking. It has become easier to divide people than to unify them, and to blind them than to give them vision. We are no longer unified like a bowl of Cheerios. Instead, we have become as segregated as a box of Lucky Charms. Every day we see the same leprechauns on TV acting like they're the experts of everything.”

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Book:Rise Up and Salute the Sun: The Writings of Suzy Kassem
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“Writing is the urge to tell folks about it. About what? About what hurts you inside. Colored folks, through the sheer fact of being colored, have got plenty hurting them inside. You see, we, too, are one of those minority races the newspapers are always talking about. Except that we are here in America, not in Europe, fourteen million of us--a rather large minority, but still a minority. Now, what's hurting us? Well, Jim Crow is hurting us. Ghettos, and segregation, and lack of jobs is hurting us. Signs up: COLORED TRADE NOT DESIRED, and dirty names such as the Jews know under Hitler hurt us. So those of us who are writers have plenty to tell the world about. To us democracy is a paradox, full of contradictions.”

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Book:Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings
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“Intellectually just saying "all lives matter", you may feel very good about yourself, you may feel, "I am so profound, I go beyond what people are able to see", but actually you do not see anything, you don't see the basic issues that people face, you don't see the ground-level problems that people face, you don't see the regular hate that people face, in their everyday walk of life, you are just a closet philosopher who loves to feel good in glorifying the indifference of the society.”

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Author:Abhijit Naskar
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“The moment you place your eyes on the ever-radiant glare of humanity in the depth of your heart, all separations would disappear from your field of vision - all barriers would crumble to dust from the fabric of your perception – and what will prevail is a plain, ordinary, sanctifying sense of humanity - only humanity would remain and everything else would turn completely blank - not an object, not a name, not a culture, not a creed, not even a sound - you could see nothing, you could hear nothing, you could feel nothing - all you could comprehend - all you could perceive - all you could realize - is that one fervor - that one fountain of uncorrupted light - your light.”

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Book:Neden Türk: The Gospel of Secularism
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“Peace Sonnet Peace doesn't grow on trees, Nor is it produced in factories. It has been a concept of books, Must it stay that way for centuries! Where argumentation is afoot, The mission becomes a phantom. Where the mind thrives on tradition, Peace is an inconvenience to the norm. Peace is but a myth most foul, An annoying goal that demands a lot. We just prefer our cozy cocoons, Giving up any of it is just plain absurd. But there is a cure to the war disease. Loosen your knots and there'll be peace.”

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Book:Hurricane Humans: Give me accountability, I'll give you peace
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“In today’s society the very humanity of a person is determined based on their nationality, race, religion, political affiliation, gender, sexuality and so on - as if, humanity is so puny that it could be packaged and labeled with the stale identities of society!”

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Book:Time to End Democracy: The Meritocratic Manifesto
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“Geography divides people only if the people allow it - faith divides people only if the people allow it - intellect divides people only if the people allow it - politics divides people only if the people allow it. So, unless the people allow it, nothing can tear our world apart. Unless you allow it, nothing can tear our society apart.”

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Book:Aşkanjali: The Sufi Sermon
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“There are too many people to speak up for their religion, for their country, for their language and so on, but very few to speak for the humankind. So speak up, for every word that you utter, every action that you take, with humanitarian responsibility, will contribute a great deal in eradicating parts of the discrimination that has polluted our beautiful planet. And if you choose not to speak up and stay deaf, dumb and blind instead, then take this oath - "all bigots, fundamentalists and sectarianists are my bosom friends - I shall always be faithful to them - I shall always stand by them, no matter how inhuman they behave - and I shall always do my best to promote their atrocities by maintaining my silence in the face of prejudice, hatred and inhumanism".”

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Book:Citizens of Peace: Beyond the Savagery of Sovereignty
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“In a free society, people may be entitled to their belief, but they are not entitled to bigotry. To the bigots, this may seem like tyranny, but it's an absolute necessity, just like it is absolutely imperative that psychopathic murderers are kept off the streets.”

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Book:Operation Justice: To Make A Society That Needs No Law
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“When someone harms our daughter or sister or wife, our rage and courage practically turn infinite and we do not even imagine of stopping until the perpetrators are brought to justice, yet when mindless barbarians keep raping the very fabric of humanity in the name of race, religion and nation, we somehow manage to accept it as the norm. What a hypocrisy! What a bunch of losers we are! Okay, be a loser - live as a loser - crawl through the several decades of your life as a loser - but don't you dare to boast about being human. Because if you don't have the guts and conscience to act against discrimination, segregation and bigotry, then you don't deserve the title of human. Losers don't make humans, just like bigots and barbarians ain't no human. If we are to look at the mirror and say out loud – yes, that’s me, a human – then we must, not should, but must, be accountable for not just our individual reality, but for our societal reality as well.”

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Book:Mission Reality
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