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White Privilege Quotes

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White Privilege Quotes

“The rest of us, on the ·other hand-we members of the protected classes-have grown increasingly· dependent on our welfare programs. In 2020 the federal government spent more than $193 billion on homeowner subsidies, a figure that far exceeded the amount spent on direct housing assistance for low income families ($53 billion). Most families who enjoy those subsidies have six-figure incomes and are white. Poor families lucky enough to live in government-owned apartments of often have to deal with mold and even lead paint, while rich families are claiming the mortgage interest deduction on first and second homes. The lifetime limit for cash welfare to poor parents is five years, but families claiming the mortgage interest deduction may do so for the length of the mortgage, typically thirty years. A fifteen-story public housing tower and a mortgaged suburban home are both government subsidized, but only one looks (and feels) that way. If you count all public benefits offered by the federal government, America's welfare state (as a share of its gross domestic product) is the second biggest in the world, after France's. But that's true only if you include things like government-subsidized retirement benefits provided by employers, student loans and 529 college savings plans, child tax credits, and homeowner subsidies: benefits disproportionately flowing to Americans well above the poverty line. If you put aside these tax breaks and judge the United States solely by the share of its GDP allocated to programs directed at low-income citizens, then our investment in poverty reduction is much smaller than that of other rich nations. The American welfare state is lopsided.”

PovertyRacismWhite Privilege529 PlansMortgage DeductionSubsidized Housing
Book:Poverty, by America
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“That’s exactly the point: when the playing field is uneven to begin with, you don’t have to be “a bad person” to benefit from nasty institutions or unwarranted privilege. You don’t have to be a bad person or even have bad intentions to personally profit from sexism, homophobia, or transphobia. You don’t have to do anything. As a heterosexual, cisgender masculine guy, you simply have to throw your name in the ring against someone like me and automatically you have those forces on your side. All you really have to do is say nothing against them. All you really have to do is keep quiet, remain “neutral” in the face of fucked up power structures, and those fucked up power structures will go on to do what they do best: walk all over people of difference. But just barely.”

SilencePrivilegeWhite PrivilegeMale Privilege
Book:Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
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“If we analyze white supremacy from the philosophical lens of Star Wars, then it is all the Sith Lords, the Empire, and the First Order commanded by the Dark Side of the Force. It wants to dominate and impose its will on all galaxies, even those far, far away. Let’s just call this insidious force THE WHITENESS. The Whiteness’s ability to inspire fear and anger is so strong that it corrupted many well-​intentioned people, including people of color, to vote for an incompetent vulgarian in 2016 and 2020. It deludes many liberal and “moderate” whites into believing that they are the “good” ones who are committed to social justice as they talk about white privilege but never actually give up any of it. Still, they’ll have these discussions about racial equality with their white friends in establishments with white patrons from white neighborhoods—​without including the rest of us. The Whiteness has always played for all the marbles. It’s not interested in diplomacy, a representative government, free and fair elections, equitable pay, and a delicious buffet of meals from a multitude of countries. It needs a border wall, a Muslim Ban, and affirmative action for wealthy white students at Yale University. It’s a system, a structure, a paradigm, an ideology whose ultimate goal is domination and submission by any means necessary.”

FearRacismAngerWhite SupremacyModeratesSystemic RacismWhitesDonald TrumpWhite Privilege
Book:Go Back to Where You Came From: And Other Helpful Recommendations on How to Become American
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“Jimmy and his activist friends were there to tell Bobby about the suffering that had scarred each black person in that room; that had scarred or killed people they loved; that had buried their communities in poverty; that had withheld their right to vote; that had lynched their grandfathers, raped their grandmothers, set the dogs on their children, called them “nigger” for daring to sit at a lunch counter; that had tried to deprive their children of education, their mothers of dignity in domestic labor, their fathers the dignity of being called “sir” and not “boy” at the age of 60. Bobby did not want the responsibility of bearing witness to their pain and their rage. Witness often exposes the unspoken claims of whiteness—its privilege to hide, its ability to deflect black suffering into comparatively sterile discussions of policy that take the heat off of “me” and put it on “that.”

SufferingRacismCivil RightsAfrican AmericanCivil Rights MovementWhitenessWhite PrivilegeAfrican American Experience
Book:What Truth Sounds Like: Robert F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, and Our Unfinished Conversation About Race in America
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“Letter from The Mountaintop (Sonnet 2252) Cosmos is colored, all color is kin. Scarlight makes the mind, sunlight makes the skin. Life is nonbinary, existence is nonbiblical. When 'sacred' is anagram for 'scared', to sin is our Earth Gospel. Churchill and Columbus belong in the jungle, loudmouth karens belong in mental institution. Those who've been to the mountaintop, grow too human for the dunghills of dogma. Here at the mountaintop, we're just humans - no black, no white, no believer, nonbeliever - here at the mountaintop, we're each other's keeper.”

DiversityRacismPrejudiceEqualityCivil RightsGenocideMulticulturalismInclusiveWhite PrivilegeNonbinary
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
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“The average colored person is ten times smarter, wiser, braver, and stronger, than most white people, not because we are genetically superior, but because, when an entire planet is rigged in favor of white colonials over the black, the brown, the latino, arab, indian, chinese, turk, and what not, we have to be exceptional to survive.”

GeniusDiversityEqualityCivil RightsInequalityImmigrantsWhite SupremacyEqual RightsWhite Privilege
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
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“Most of the world's geniuses are non-whites, not because it's genetic, but because, like white people inherit blonde hair and blue eyes, or daddy's emeralds, we inherit generational persecution, and any brain forced to endure persecution as daily chore, becomes a powerhouse of apparently supernatural mental faculties.”

GeniusDiversityCivil RightsPersecutionWhite SupremacySystemic RacismWhite PrivilegeMarginalizedGenerational TraumaDecolonizing
Book:Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper
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“By hiding behind the overarching term “white privilege,” the small percentage of privileged whites have ensured the following: first, they remain disguised behind the veil of whiteness and thus maintain the status quo. Second, they ensure that most marginalized white people remain defensive—and come to their defense—whenever their wealth and power are threatened. Third, through the structure of “whiteness,” privileged whites ensure that a large percentage of disadvantaged white people see other groups fighting against similar socio-economic ills as enemies, not allies to unite with in their battle. As such, the first bold proposal I make, if we are serious about social change, is to replace “white privilege” with “privileged whites” to account for the many whites who are not privileged and distinguish them from those who are. The huge number of disadvantaged white people are allies in this battle against the privileged, wealthy ruling class who utilize countless “isms” and “phobias” as sorting devices, while using the term “white privilege” as a tool to prevent any potential allyship between many white people who are not part of their club, yet are misled to think that the problem is everyone else in society except the privileged whites…Precision in language makes a huge difference to ensure all social groups who need to unite and work together have clarity on what kind of changes are needed, and who exactly is blocking change and transformation. [From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”

DiversityRacismPropagandaEquityWhite SupremacyDiversity And InclusionWhite PrivilegeDivide And ConquerEquity And InclusionWhitness
Author:Louis Yako
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“Record of White Crimes Against Humanity (White Fragility Sonnets 1308-1310) Whiteness has done more harm to the world than good, Till you look past your whiteness, you cannot be human. Orange 'n musky trash of white privilege diss diversity, What else would you expect from colonial descendants! Every generation has its fraudsters like Edison, Every generation has trashy maniacs like Columbus. Every generation has war-merchants like Kissinger, Every generation has its churchillian doofus. White people tortured the Africans, White people booted Native Americans; White people massacred the Vietnamese, White people lynched and looted the Indians. White people caused genocide after genocide, Yet you still boast about white superiority. You proclaim that people of color are inferior, While white society is the epitome of savagery. If devil had a color, it would be white - Yet I say, color is nonsense, we're all equal. I am human enough to give you place beside me, All I expect is that, a human behaves human. After all the heartaches inflicted by white people, A 100 generations worth apology won't be sufficient. Yet I am human enough to declare, we are all equal; All I ask is that, humans finally behave human. They say, I'm spreading hate against the whites; To which I say, human making is my mission. There is no hope for humanitarian uplift, Unless you renounce all fragile intoleration. If you wanna learn about tolerance, ask a person of color, How do you even tolerate the sight of white people, when the wrongs done to you by whites are unparalleled in history! You'll realize, there's no mythical secret to integration, For ages we've known no other life but of inclusivity. Middle East, India and Far East, have been the melting pot of integration, before the whites even knew what integration is. Yet you say white people are superior - so be it; Cowards always take refuge in fairytales, to justify their fragility and prejudice. If you wanna be a decent human being, Never draw moral parameters from the west. No matter whether you're born of east or west, Remember, you are human first, then all else. To recognize diversity is science, To celebrate diversity is humanity. To recognize privilege is common sense, To abandon privilege builds human society.”

DiversitySlaveryColonialismWhite SupremacyWhite PrivilegeNeonaziIndigenous RightsChristian NationalismWhite FragilityBengal Famine
Book:Visvavatan: 100 Demilitarization Sonnets
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“Laurie piped up again. 'At State, everybody calls diversity dispersity. What happens is, everybody has their own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they all sit in the dining hall--all the African Americans are over there? . . . and all the Asians sit over't these other tables? -- except for the Koreans? -- because they don't get along with the Japanese so they sit way over there? Everybody's dispersed into their own little groups -- and everybody's told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that everybody else is trying to screw them over--oops!' -- Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her lips -- 'I'm sorry!' She rolled eyes and smiled. 'Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced against your group, and no matter what they say, they're only out to take advantage of you, and you should have nothing to do with them -- unless your white, in which case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're like totally right, because you really are a racist and everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with them. Is it like that at Dupont?”

CollegeDiversityPrejudiceMulticulturalismMulticulturalWhite PrivilegeRacial PrejudiceCollege LifeRacial TensionMicroagressions
Book:I Am Charlotte Simmons
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“Empathy is no substitute for experience itself. We don’t get to tell a person with a broken leg or a bullet wound that they are or are not in pain. And people who have hit the caste lottery are not in a position to tell a person who has suffered under the tyranny of caste what is offensive or hurtful or demeaning to those at the bottom. The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse.”

EmpathyPrivilegeWhite Privilege
Book:Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
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“Take a little thought experiment. Imagine all the rampage school shooters in Littleton, Colorado; Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; Springfield, Oregon; and Jonesboro, Arkansas; now imagine they were black girls from poor families who lived instead in Chicago, New Haven, Newark, Philadelphia, or Providence. Can you picture the national debate, the headlines, the hand-wringing? There is no doubt we’d be having a national debate about inner-city poor black girls. The entire focus would be on race, class, and gender. The media would doubtless invent a new term for their behavior, as with wilding two decades ago. We’d hear about the culture of poverty, about how living in the city breeds crime and violence. We’d hear some pundits proclaim some putative natural tendency among blacks toward violence. Someone would likely even blame feminism for causing girls to become violent in a vain imitation of boys. Yet the obvious fact that virtually all the rampage school shooters were middle-class white boys barely broke a ripple in the torrent of public discussion. This uniformity cut across all other differences among the shooters: some came from intact families, others from single-parent homes; some boys had acted violently in the past, and others were quiet and unassuming; some boys also expressed rage at their parents (two killed their parents the same morning), and others seemed to live in happy families.”

ClassMediaAngerPrivilegeGunsClass StruggleWhite PrivilegeMedia BiasMedia DistortionSchool ShootingSchool ShootingsAngry Young ManAngry White Males
Book:Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era
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“To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.” This invisibility is political.”

RaceClassPrivilegeWhite PrivilegeAngry Young ManAngry White MalesThe Red PillPurple PillLoss Of PrivilegeRace And Class
Book:Privilege: A Reader
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“These demographics presented real threats to white planters, including a potential cross-racial labor movement. Plantation work was close and intimate, and it fostered a troubling solidarity between the growing Black population and white indentured servants. White planters could not afford for such a dangerous bond to form--which is why in 1705 Virginia's legislature did as much to codify white privilege as it did to establish Black subjugation.”

ClassLaborSlaveryAfrican AmericansBlacksWhitesWhite PrivilegeSlavesSlave Owners
Book:Four Hundred Souls: A Community History of African America, 1619-2019
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“When Whiteness Collapses (Sonnet) When the whites benefit from privilege, it's part and parcel of colonial heritage, but when a giant rises from the marginals, it eclipses the shallow heights of whiteness. I'm colored, I'm scientist, I'm poet, I'm polyglot - coming from zero money, I won the world with words. Try and get your puny white brains around this existence enigma - compile your white canons of a century, and they turn bleak next to just one year of multicultural, multidisciplinary Naskar. I never grovelled to be included, I let my vastness out, and the world queues for my grace.”

PhilosophyLiteratureGeniusSocial JusticeInequalityMulticulturalismDecolonizationWhite PrivilegeMarginalized
Book:Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat
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“Whitewashed World (The Sonnet) I once sent my sonnets for an official recognition, They rejected me saying, I lack skill and significance. It's a white people's world after all, like it or not, We wouldn't want the little white poets to take offence! My skin doesn't radiate the glory of talcum powder, So I'm supposed to be thankful for the white hand-me-downs. Mine is not to seek recognition in a whitewashed world, Mine is to keep on struggling with my vigor's last ounce. In a world where top white export is but oppression, Everything is ten times less difficult if you are white. A mermaid of color tickles the conquerors the wrong way, White people's Nobel disproportionately goes to the whites. Whether you recognize me or not, I neither care nor mind. The reason I write this, so humankind becomes human and kind.”

SlaveryWhite SupremacyBlack Lives MatterDiversity And InclusionHate CrimeEmancipationSystemic RacismWhite PrivilegeRacial ProfilingRacism Poetry
Book:Corazon Calamidad: Obedient to None, Oppressive to None
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“When I use the term colonizer, I refer only to those who take pride in colonial exploits, and not to those accountable human beings who happen to descend from colonial ancestors. Colonialism is the enemy, it has nothing to do with skin or ancestry. As long as you stand true on ethics of equality and mettle of character, rather than boasting pedigree and archaic tradition, you are a champion of humanity, no matter your ethnicity, ancestry, profession or status.”

ColonialismImperialismWhite SupremacyWhite PrivilegeColonial HistoryFar RightIndigenous RightsDecolonisationColonialDecolonizing
Book:Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations
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“Center of the World is Indigenous (Sonnet 2680) Fact of the matter is, most white scholars eventually turn out to be just another colonial twit, no matter how brilliant, how learned they are, because animal conditioning doesn't wear off with mere education of the intellect - your soul must be disinfected of colonial filth, which is not possible until you intrinsically embody the pain, indignity, and humiliations of the oppressed, subjected through generations. Your opinion on religion, your opinion of reason, your opinion of philosophy, your opinion of society, it's all just opinion, that too of a lesser lifeform, until you outgrow your whiteness and look at the world through the actual center of the world - and the center of the world is indigenous.”

ColonialismDecolonizationEthnic CleansingWhite PrivilegeIndigenous PeopleReparationsEurocentrismWhite FragilityDecolonizingAnti Colonialism
Book:With Love From A Blue Rock
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“You know how the dinosaurs went extinct - they committed suicide when they saw the white man coming. They said to themselves, clearly white men are the apex predator of earth, so there's no point of us being! Asteroids wiped out the dinosaurs, caucasteroids wiped out civilizations. Colonialism was a mass extinction event, yet no textbook has the spine to bear the burden.”

GenocideColonialismImperialismWhite SupremacyEthnic CleansingWhite PrivilegeMassacreIndigenous RightsAbolish Monarchy
Book:Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat
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“In Colonial English they say: not all muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are muslim. In Naskarian English we say: not all white people are animal, but 99% of historic predators, terrorists, traffickers, thieves, morons and imbeciles were white. United States has a 9/11 Memorial, Germany has a Holocaust Memorial, but if you endeavor to commemorate the earth victims of White Terrorism, you'll run out of walls before you run out of names.”

TerrorismGenocideHolocaustNaziWhite PrivilegeIndigenous PeopleColonial HistorySlave TradeColonizersEthnics Cleansing
Book:Kral Fakir: When Calls The Kainat
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“World Poachers (Sonnet 1502) The western alliance didn't fight Hitler because he tortured the Jewish people, they fought him because he was't gonna show anyone any special consideration. Jews were never the focus of World War 2, It was about the invaders being invaded. Lo and behold, Nazis are the villain, though England, Belgium, France, Spain and Portugal caused far worse damage! If you feel one way about Hitler, and another way about Churchill, your opinion is of no consequence, living on a whitewashed dunghill. Rushmore is a monument of massacre, Buckingham is a palace of plunderers. Till you denounce all atrocious heritage, You're just animal heir to world poachers.”

Social JusticeCivil RightsGenocideColonialismWhite SupremacySystemic RacismWhite PrivilegeColonial HistoryMassacreWorld War
Book:World War Human: 100 New Earthling Sonnets
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“Now, let me preface this story with the following: If you think that I am in any way endorsing cultural appropriation by writing this, you should just stop reading. I swear to Goddess,* if I hear about any one of you reading this passage and deciding, “Okay, yeah, great, the moral of this story is that Jacob thinks it’s awesome for white people to dress up as Native Americans for Halloween, so I’m gonna go do that,” I will use the power of the internet to find out where you live and throw so many eggs at your house that it becomes a giant omelet. Or if you’re vegan, I will throw so much tofu at your house that it becomes a giant tofu scramble. The point of this passage is not that white people should dress their children as Native Americans for Halloween. That’s basically the opposite of the point here. Capisce? All that being said, it was 1997. I was six years old and hadn’t quite developed my political consciousness about cultural appropriation or the colonization of the Americas and subsequent genocide of Native American people at the hands of white settlers yet. I also didn’t know multiplication, so I had some stuff to work on. What I did know was that Pocahontas was, by far, the most badass Disney princess. Keep in mind that Disney’s transgender-butch-lesbian masterpiece Mulan wasn’t released until a year later, or else I would’ve obviously gone with that (equally problematic) costume.”

Cultural DiversityWhite PrivilegeCultural AppropriationNative American Genocide
Book:Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story
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