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Slurs Quotes

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Slurs Quotes

“At the zoo, I stood in front of the primate cage listening to a woman marvel at how “presidential” the four-hundred-pound gorilla looked sitting astride a shorn oaken limb, keeping a watchful eye over his caged brood. When her boyfriend, his finger tapping the informational placard, pointed out the “presidential” silverback’s name coincidentally was Baraka, the woman laughed aloud, until she saw me, the other four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, stuffing something that might have been the last of a Big Stick Popsicle or a Chiquita banana in my mouth.”

HumourRacism In AmericaSlursGorilla
Book:The Sellout
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“At the zoo, I stood in front of the primate cage listening to a woman marvel at how “presidential” the four-hundred-pound gorilla looked sitting astride a shorn oaken limb, keeping a watchful eye over his caged brood. When her boyfriend, his finger tapping the informational placard, pointed out the “presidential” silverback’s name coincidentally was Baraka, the woman laughed aloud, until she saw me, the other four-hundred-pound gorilla in the room, stuffing something that might have been the last of a Big Stick Popsicle or a Chiquita banana in my mouth. Then she became disconsolate, crying and apologizing for having spoken her mind and my having been born. “Some of my best friends are monkeys,” she said accidentally. It was my turn to laugh. I understood where she was coming from. This whole city’s a Freudian slip of the tongue, a concrete hard-on for America’s deeds and misdeeds. Slavery? Manifest Destiny? Laverne & Shirley? Standing by idly while Germany tried to kill every Jew in Europe? Why some of my best friends are the Museum of African Art, the Holocaust Museum, the Museum of the American Indian, the National Museum of Women in the Arts. And furthermore, I’ll have you know, my sister’s daughter is married to an orangutan.”

Racism In AmericaSlursGorilla
Book:The Sellout
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“I learned a strange thing... that in a jumble of unintelligible talk, the word "nigger" leaps out with electric clarity. You always hear it and it always stings. And always it casts the person using it into a category of brute ignorance. I thought with some amusement that if these two women only knew what they were revealing about themselves to every Negro on that bus, they would have been outraged.”

IgnoranceHatredVulgaritySlursRacial Slurs
Book:Black Like Me
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“It was in 1590--winter. Austria was far away from the world, and asleep; it was still the Middle Ages in Austria, and promised to remain so forever. Some even set it away back centuries upon centuries and said that by the mental and spiritual clock it was still the Age of Belief in Austria. But they meant it as a compliment, not a slur, and it was so taken, and we were all proud of it. I remember it well, although I was only a boy; and I remember, too, the pleasure it gave me.”

WorldWellsSaidStillsBookAgeRememberSpiritualBeliefPleasureBoysForeverTakenMiddleCenturyProudWinterClockComplimentFar AwayMiddle AgesAustriaSlurs
Book:The Mysterious Stranger
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“Never drink more than one cocktail before giving a talk. True, the drinks may relax you, but they may also slur your speech and blur your memory, making you wonder who are all those people out there and why are they staring at you?”

PeopleGivingMayMemoriesWonderDrinkSpeechStaringRelaxOur MemoriesCocktailsBlurSlursStaring At You
Book:Murphy must have been a mother!: (and other laws I live by)
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“You cannot show real respect to your parents by perpetuating their errors.... Do you consider that the inventor of a steel plow cast a slur upon his father who scratched the ground with a wooden one? I do not consider that an invention by the son is a slander upon the father; I regard each invention simply as an improvement; and every father should be exceedingly proud of an ingenious son. If Mr. Talmage has a son, it will be impossible for him to honor his father except by differing with him.”

IfsShouldRealShowsFatherParentImpossibleAtheismSonProudHonorRegardErrorsCastsPositive AtheismImprovementInventionSteelInventorSlanderIngeniousPerpetuatingSlurs
Book:Ingersoll the Magnificent: To which Has Been Added a Special Arrangement of Some Gems from Ingersoll for Inspiration, Wisdom, and Courage
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“... woman is frequently praised as the more "creative" sex. She does not need to make poems, it is argued; she has no drive to make poems, because she is privileged to make babies. A pregnancy is as fulfilling as, say, Yeats' Sailing to Byzantium.... To call a child a poem may be a pretty metaphor, but it is a slur on the labor of art.”

NeedsMayChildrenDoeArtPoetrySexCreativityCreativePoetBabyLaborMetaphorMotherhoodPregnancyFulfillingPrivilegedSailingSlursYeatsByzantium
Author:Cynthia Ozick
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“I started asking friends, my white friends around, I said, "What's something that you think all Asians have in common?" They almost always immediately said, "Slanted eyes." I thought that's really interesting. No. 1, it simply isn't true. Not all Asian Americans have slanted eyes, and of course, Asians aren't the only ethnic identities to have them. No. 2, we could talk about our slant on life and what it's like to be people of color, while at the same time, using this outdated and obscure racial slur, and turning it on its head.”

PeopleThinkingSaidEyeCoursesWhiteInterestingCommonIdentityColorAskingObscureAsianReally InterestingOutdatedAsian AmericanSlursEthnic Identity
Author:Simon Tam
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“Fury is an entirely appropriate response to a system that sends young people to kill other young people in a war that never should have been waged. Yet the American Right is forever trying to pathologise anger as something menacing and abnormal, dismissing war opponents as hateful and, in the latest slur, "wild-eyed". This is much harder to do when victims of wars begin to speak for themselves: no one questions the wildness in the eyes of a mother or father who has just lost a son or daughter, or the fury of a soldier who knows that he is being asked to kill, and to die, needlessly.”

PeopleKnowsShouldTryingHas BeensWarEyeYoungPoliticalMotherDiesFatherLostSpeakForeverSonDaughterShould HaveHarderVictimResponseSoldierOpponentsAppropriateFuryHatefulShould Have BeenAbnormalWildnessSlursVictims Of War
Author:Naomi Klein
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“For all the casual slurs about 'cultural imperialism', British imperialists were more interested in other cultures than anybody before or since, and, if they hadn't dug it up and taken care of it, we'd know hardly anything about the ancient world. What's important about a nation's past is not what it keeps walled up in the museum but what it keeps outside, living and breathing as every citizen's inheritance.”

IfsKnowsWorldImportantCarePastCultureNationsTakenCitizensAncientBritishBreathingMuseumsImperialismInheritanceCasualWhat's ImportantOther CulturesSlursAncient World
Author:Mark Steyn
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“There’s nothing entertaining about watching goons hurl venomous slurs at congressmen like the civil rights hero John Lewis and the openly gay Barney Frank. How curious that a mob fond of likening President Obama to Hitler knows so little about history that it doesn’t recognize its own small-scale mimicry of Kristallnacht.”

KnowsLittlesPresidentRightsHeroGayScalesCivil RightsCuriousPresident ObamaEntertainingFrankCongressmanSlursMimicryVenomousGoons
Author:Frank Rich
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