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564ca43 I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls. racism inspirational race-relations Martin Luther King Jr.
128e94a Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade their responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. responsibility minority sexual-orientation race-relations oppression Audre Lorde
8278c6b And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are. war slavery america us united-states-of-america native-americans usa delusions united-states cruelty race-relations theft Colson Whitehead
388cfcf Slavery is a sin when whites were put to the yoke, but not the African. All men are created equal, unless we decide you are not a man. slavery white-people dignity race-relations Colson Whitehead
0ab7cf9 You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies--the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects--are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream. The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs. racism america united-states-of-america blacks whites police-reform usa united-states race-relations police Ta-Nehisi Coates
5f0bbc2 Three hundred years of humiliation, abuse and deprivation cannot be expected to find voice in a whisper. racism silence slavery politics corrupt martin-luther-king-jr civil-rights-movement corruption race-relations Martin Luther King Jr.
b025db3 "Without the presence of black people in America, European-Americans would not be "white"-- they would be Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh, and other engaged in class, ethnic, and gender struggles over resources and identity. (p. 107-108)" race-relations Cornel West
e4d787d If niggers were supposed to have their freedom, they wouldn't be in chains. If the red man was supposed to keep hold of his land, it'd still be his. If the white man wasn't destined to take this new world, he wouldn't own it now. Here was the true Great Spirit, the divine thread connecting all human endeavor--if you can keep it, it is yours. Your property, slave or continent. The American imperative. slavery america us united-states-of-america white-people possessions native-americans usa united-states ownership race-relations Colson Whitehead
140854a Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they were, how clever and loving, how human, the more they used themselves up to persuade whites of something Negroes believed could not be questioned, the deeper and more tangled the jungle grew inside. But it wasn't the jungle blacks brought with them to this place from the other (livable) place. It was the jungle whitefolks planted in them. And it grew. It spread. In, through and after life, it spread, until it invaded the whites who had made it. Touched them every one. Changed and altered them. Made them bloody, silly, worse than even they wanted to be, so scared were they of the jungle they had made. The screaming baboon lived under their own white skin; the red gums were their own. stereotypes racism history blacks whites race-relations racism-in-america Toni Morrison
4a82cd7 "...After all, acknowledging unfairness then calls decent people forth to correct those injustices. And since most persons are at their core, decent folks, the need to ignore evidence of injustice is powerful: To do otherwise would force whites to either push for change (which they would perceive as against their interests) or live consciously as hypocrites who speak of freedom and opportunity but perpetuate a system of inequality. racism hypocricy george-zimmerman trayvon-martin black-and-white black-history privilege white-privilege race-relations willful-ignorance Tim Wise
362b88a Individual cultures and ideologies have their appropriate uses but none of them erase or replace the universal experiences, like love and weeping and laughter, common to all human beings. laughter joy humanity angel-art appropriate-application common-ground cultural-boundaries cultural-demographics cultural-heritage cultural-literacy demographics universal-truths ideologies ideology-religion-war-compromise philosophy-for-millennials racial-division racial-identity social-philosophy sociological-imagination universal-love cultural-differences waging-peace ending-violent-jihad anti-racism ending-war faith-in-love interfaith-dialogue multiculturalismo faith-in-humanity peacism antiracism spiritual-philosophy joy-of-life coexistence cultural-relativism nonviolent-conflict-resolution human-condition universal multiculturalism love-for-humanity diversity universality race-relations weeping human-beings ideology Aberjhani
5d5961d There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that must accept . The terrible thing, old buddy, is that must accept And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. They have had to believe for many years, and for innumerable reasons, that black men are inferior to white men. Many of them, indeed, know better, but, as you will discover, people find it very difficult to act on what they know. racism white-people african-americans superiority race-relations inferiority James Baldwin
0a91243 If the idea of loving those whom you have been taught to recognize as your enemies is too overwhelming, consider more deeply the observation that we are all much more alike than we are unalike. hate love anti-racism belief-in-nonviolence children-victims-of-war civility compassion-love compassion-wisdom coping-with-change courage-to-love discourse-on-a-better-world ending-terrorism ending-war faith-in-love finding-strength-in-love global-peace-movement global-village good-versus-evil hate-versus-love higher-consciousness hope-for-humanity interfaith-dialogue international-community jihadism-and-love jihadists-and-love living-without-fear love-and-jihad multiculturalismo police-culture quotes-for-the-new-year radical-grace sustainbale-humanity trusting-love faith-in-humanity peacism postered-poetics-by-aberjhani antiracism spiritual-philosophy enemy-quotes coexistence quote-of-the-day unconditional-love fear-of-love making-a-difference compassion-heals-lives human-rights-day national-history-day nonviolent-conflict-resolution police-reform mindfulness terrorism multiculturalism xenophobia diversity wisdom-quotes race-relations philosophy-of-life ideas human-nature Aberjhani
5f9bad7 And if the word means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it. For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it; great men have done great things here, and will again, and we can make America what America must become. america reality love us integration whites usa united-states race-relations James Baldwin
a90e933 This has been the century of strangers, brown, yellow and white. This has been the century of the great immigrant experiment. It is only this late in the day that you can walk into a playground and find Isaac Leung by the fish pond, Danny Rahman in the football cage, Quang O'Rourke bouncing a basketball, and Irie Jones humming a tune. Children with first and last names on a direct collision course. Names that secrete within them mass exodus, cramped boats and planes, cold arrivals, medical checks. It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother liked the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best -- less trouble). immigrants immigration race-relations race Zadie Smith
f6a890a "There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet. White people in this country will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved this -- which will not be tomorrow and will not be today and may very well be never -- the Negro problem will no longer exist, for it will no longer be needed." racism america compassion politics love white-people african-americans race-relations race James Baldwin
f856dca "Those white things have taken all I had or dreamed," she said, "and broke my heartstrings too. There is no bad luck in the world but whitefolks." racism blacks whites race-relations luck Toni Morrison
1c0bd2a White folks have controlled New Orleans with money and guns, black folks have controlled it with magic and music, and although there has been a steady undercurrent of mutual admiration, an intermingling of cultures unheard of in any other American city, South or North; although there has prevailed a most joyous and fascinating interface, black anger and white fear has persisted, providing the ongoing, ostensibly integrated fete champetre with volatile and sometimes violent idiosyncrasies. fear music new-orleans white race-relations guns power Tom Robbins
aedfb27 I understand now that the only time black people don't feel guilty is when we've actually done something wrong, because that relieves us of the cognitive dissonance of being black and innocent, and in a way the prospect of going to jail becomes a relief. blacks jail justice-system race-relations incarceration innocence justice prison guilt Paul Beatty
02f1239 White man trying to kill you slow every day, and sometimes trying to kill you fast. Why make it easy for him? That was one kind of work you could say no to. escape slavery death slaves whites race-relations Colson Whitehead
1859762 The time has come to realize that the interracial drama acted out on the American continent has not only created a new black man, it has created a new white man, too. No road whatever will lead Americans back to the simplicity of this European village where white men still have the luxury of looking on me as a stranger. I am not, really, a stranger any longer for any American alive. One of the things that distinguishes Americans from other people is that no other people has ever been so deeply involved in the lives of black men, and vice versa. This fact faced, with all its implications, it can be seen that the history of the American Negro problem is not merely shameful, it is also something of an achievement. For even when the worst has been said, it must also be added that the perpetual challenge posed by this problem was always, somehow, perpetually met. It is precisely this black-white experience which may prove of indispensable value to us in the world we face today. This world is white no longer, and it will never be white again. history stranger-in-the-village blackness whiteness whites american-history race-relations race James Baldwin
3cdb8ea "There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be "accepted" by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don't wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet." race-relations James Baldwin
1066898 It began to strike me that the point of my education was a kind of discomfort, was the process that would not award me my own especial Dream but would break all the dreams, all the comforting myths of Africa, of America, and everywhere, and would leave me only with humanity in all its terribleness. And there was so much terrible out there, even among us. You must understand this. racism learning education blacks discomfort race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
4f69f63 Under the white population of the United States of America only the reactionary classes oppress the black population. Under no circumstance can they represent the workers, farmers and revolutionary intellectuals and other enlighted people who form the majority of the white population. slavery class-relations race-relations Mao Zedong
300c74e It becomes more and more difficult to avoid the idea of black men as subjects of not just racial profiling but of an insidious form of racial obliteration sanctioned by silence. humanity darren-hunt post-racial-america racial-profiling demographics-of-united-states eric-garner kajieme-powell killing-of-black-men-in-america michael-brown tamir-rice trayvon-martin troy-anthony-davis mass-incarceration prison-reform human-rights-day race-and-racism-in-america race-relations Aberjhani
073ce78 Anyone intent on moral clarity might want to find another book and, in fact, might not want to go anywhere near the enduring chasm of race in the United States. moral-clarity united-states race-relations Timothy B. Tyson
f319a87 The details and symbols of your life have been deliberately constructed to make you believe what white people say about you. Please try to remember that what they believe, as well as what they do and cause you to endure, does not testify to your inferiority but to their inhumanity and fear. racism fear life white-people superiority bigotry beliefs race-relations inferiority James Baldwin
c26b98b In the context of the Negro problem neither whites nor blacks, for excellent reasons of their own, have the faintest desire to look back; but I think that the past is all that makes the present coherent, and further, that the past will remain horrible for exactly as long as we refuse to assess it honestly. understanding racism history past blacks whites race-relations race James Baldwin
b558a4c Fuck what you have heard or what you have seen in your son. He may lie about homework and laugh when the teacher calls home. He may curse his teacher, propose arson for the whole public system. But inside is the same sense that was in me. None of us ever want to fail. None of us want to be unworthy, to not measure up. race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
3ac4e78 "Through The Mecca I saw that we were, in our own segregated body politic, cosmopolitans. The black diaspora was not just our own world but, in so many ways, the Western world itself. Now, the heirs of those Virginia planters could never directly acknowledge this legacy or reckon with its power. And so that beauty that Malcolm pledged us to protect, black beauty, was never celebrated in movies, in television, or in the textbooks I'd seen as a child. Everyone of any import, from Jesus to George Washington, was white. This was why your grandparents banned Tarzan and the Lone Ranger and toys with white faces from the house. They were rebelling against the history books that spoke of black people only as sentimental "firsts"--first black five-star general, first black congressman, first black mayor--always presented in the bemused manner of a category of Trivial Pursuit. Serious history was the West, and the West was white. This was all distilled for me in a quote I once read from the novelist Saul Bellow. I can't remember where I read it, or when--only that I was already at Howard. "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?" Bellow quipped. Tolstoy was "white," and so Tolstoy "mattered," like everything else that was white "mattered." And this view of things was connected to the fear that passed through the generations, to the sense of dispossession. We were black, beyond the visible spectrum, beyond civilization. Our history was inferior because we were inferior, which is to say our bodies were inferior. And our inferior bodies could not possibly be accorded the same respect as those that built the West. Would it not be better, then, if our bodies were civilized, improved, and put to some legitimate Christian use?" racism history howard-university malcolm-x blacks whites race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
08050fc By the time I visited those battlefields, I knew that they had been retrofitted as the staging ground for a great deception, and this was my only security, because they could no longer insult me by lying to me. I knew--and the most important thing I knew was that, somewhere deep with them, they knew too. I like to think that knowing might have kept me from endangering you, that having understood and acknowledged the anger, I could control it. I like to think that it could have allowed me to speak the needed words to the woman and then walk away. I like to think this, but I can't promise it. The struggle is really all I have for you because it is the only portion of this world under your control. struggle racism life blacks whites race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
3a750d1 It is truly horrible to understand yourself as the essential below of your country. It breaks too much of what we would like to think about ourselves, our lives, the world we move through and the people who surround us. The struggle to understand is our only advantage over this madness. racism america learning united-states-of-america blacks usa united-states race-relations knowledge Ta-Nehisi Coates
5e4ee1d To be a black male is to be always at war, and no flight to the county can save us, because even there we are met by the assupmtion of violence, by the specter of who we might turn on next. race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
02738a5 One strain of African American thought holds that it is a violent black recklessness--the black gangster, the black rioter--that strikes the ultimate terror in white America. Perhaps it does, in the most individual sense. But in the collective sense, what this country really fears is black respectability, Good Negro Government. It applauds, even celebrates, Good Negro Government in the unthreatening abstract--The Cosby Show, for instance. But when it becomes clear that Good Negro Government might, in any way, empower actual Negroes over actual whites, then the fear sets in, the affirmative-action charges begin, and birtherism emerges. racism american-myths birtherism black-respectability good-negro-government race-relations race Ta-Nehisi Coates
889d848 For the history of the American Negro is unique also in this: that the question of his humanity, and of his rights therefore as a human being, became a burning one for several generations of Americans, so burning a question that it ultimately became one of those used to divide the nation. racism human-rights history blacks whites american-history race-relations race rights James Baldwin
7bef969 The people who think of themselves as White have the choice of becoming human or irrelevant. Or--as they are, indeed, already, in all but actual fact: obsolete. For, if trouble don't last always, as the Preacher tells us, neither does Power, and it is on the fact or the hope or the myth of Power that that identity which calls itself White has always seemed to depend. racism obsolescence whites relevance race-relations race power James Baldwin
bf50872 I don't think that the Negro problem in America can be even discussed coherently without bearing in mind its context; its context being the history, traditions, customs, the moral assumptions and preoccupations of the country; in short, the general social fabric. Appearances to the contrary, no one in America escapes its effects and everyone in America bears some responsibility for it. understanding racism history context race-relations race James Baldwin
2b0acab When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my father's bitter warnings, had discovered the secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be for me an awful thing to live with and that the bitterness which had helped to kill my father could also kill me. racism fathers family whites bitterness sons race-relations race James Baldwin
58bc682 No one in the world -- in the entire world -- know more -- knows Americans better or, odd as this may sound, loves them more than the American Negro. This is because he has had to watch you, outwit you, deal with you, and bear you, and sometimes even bleed and die with you, ever since we got here, that is, since both of us, black and white, got here -- and this is a wedding. Whether I like it or not, or whether you like it or not, we are bound together forever. We are part of each other. race-and-racism-in-america race-relations James Baldwin
a88f344 No curtain under heaven is heavier than that curtain of guilt and lies behind which white Americans hide. james-baldwin usa race-relations race James Baldwin
17083aa It was not only colored people who praised John, since they could not, John felt, in any case really know; but white people also said it, in fact had said it first and said it still. It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence. racism identity identity-confusion racism-and-culture respectability self-actualization identity-crisis race-and-racism-in-america individualism race-relations racism-in-america respect self-respect self-esteem James Baldwin
99e05ab Americans, unhappily, have the most remarkable ability to alchemize all bitter truths into an innocuous but piquant confection and to transform their moral contradictions, or public discussion of such contradictions, into a proud decoration, such as are given for heroism on the field of battle. racism morality truth contradictions race-relations race James Baldwin
f109ad0 He seemed to hasten the retreat of departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply, as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a subtle and dismal influence; a something cold and gloomy that floated out and settled on all the faces like a mourning veil. The circle broke up. The joy of laughter died on stiffened lips. racism race-relations Joseph Conrad
63d830a He had met this sort of white man before, earnest and believing what came out of their mouths. The veracity of their words was another matter, but at least they believed them. The southern white man was spat from the loins of the devil and there was no way to forecast his next evil act. truth white-people south southerners belief race-relations evil Colson Whitehead
7bc0daf Try to imagine how you would feel if you woke up one morning to find the sun shining and all the stars aflame. You would be frightened because it is out of the order of nature. Any upheaval in the universe is terrifying because it so profoundly attacks one's sense of one's own reality. Well, the black man has functioned in the white man's world as a fixed star, as an immovable pillar: and as he moves out of his place, heaven and earth are shaken to their foundation. racism equality reality race-relations James Baldwin
14112cd Yet, if the American Negro has arrived at his identity by virtue of the absoluteness of his estrangement from his past, American white men still nourish the illusion that there is some means of recovering the European innocence, of returning to a state in which black men do not exist. This is one of the greatest errors Americans can make. The identity they fought so hard to protect has, by virtue of that battle, undergone a change: Americans are as unlike any other white people in the world as it is possible to be. I do not think, for example, that it is too much to suggest that the American vision of the world-which allows so little reality, generally speaking, for any of the darker forces in human life, which tends until today to paint moral issues in glaring black and white owes a great deal to the battle waged by Americans to maintain between themselves and black men a human separation which could not be bridged. It is only now beginning to be borne in on us, very faintly, it must be admitted, very slowly, and very much against our will--that this vision of the world is dangerously inaccurate, and perfectly useless. For it protects our moral high-mindedness at the terrible expense of weakening our grasp of reality. People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state of innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster. racism history morality identity blacks whites american-history race-relations race James Baldwin
c5fa88d We do not admire their president. We know why the White House is white. We do not find their children irresistible; We do not agree they should inherit the earth. poems poetry us united-states-of-america native-americans whites usa united-states race-relations Alice Walker
5cf71f1 At the root of the American Negro problem is the necessity of the American white man to find a way of living with the Negro in order to be able to live with himself. racism african-americans blacks whites race-relations race James Baldwin
7d69ac2 I don't give a damn if there's any hope for them or not. But I know that I am not about to be bugged by any more white jokers who still can't figure out whether I'm human or not. If they don't know, baby, sad on them, and I hope they drop dead slowly, in great pain. racism humanity white race-relations race James Baldwin
4fe8f18 Most people are not naturally reflective any more than they are naturally malicious, and the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him thus to preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefathers, or his neighbors. racism blacks whites thoughtfulness race-relations reflection race guilt thought James Baldwin
9b5c599 "The bus here because they lost Rosa Parks's bus." "Who lost Rosa Parks's bus?" "White people. Who the fuck else? Supposedly, every February when schoolkids visit the Rosa Parks Museum, or wherever the fuck the bus is at, the bus they tell the kids is the birthplace of the civil rights movement is a phony. Just some old Birmingham city bus they found in some junkyard. That's what my sister says, anyway." "I don't know." Cuz took two deep swallows of gin. "What you mean, 'You don't know'? You think that after Rosa Parks bitch-slapped white America, some white rednecks going to go out of their way to save the original bus? That'd be like the Celtics hanging Magic Johnson's jersey in the rafters of the Boston Garden. No fucking way." rosa-parks the-henry-ford artifacts museums whites civil-rights race-relations Paul Beatty
aee0b61 We are captured, brother, surrounded by the majoritarian bandits of America. And this has happened here, in our only home, and the terrible truth is that we cannot will ourselves to an escape on our own. Perhaps that was, is, the hope of the movement: to awaken the Dreamers, to rouse them to the facts of what their need to be white, to talk like they are white, to think that they are white, which is to think that they are beyond the design flaws of humanity, has done to the world. racism blacks whites civil-rights-movement race-relations Ta-Nehisi Coates
d82e290 You were born into a society which spelled out with brutal clarity, and in as many ways as possible, that you were a worthless human being. You were not expected to aspire to excellence: you were expected to make peace with mediocrity. racism disparities systematic-oppression systematic-racism race-relations race-in-america James Baldwin
46386de Perhaps it now occurs to him that in this need to establish himself in his relation to his past [the African American] is most American, that this depthless alienation from oneself and one's people is, in sum, the American experience. history america blacks race-relations race James Baldwin
c272d30 The rage of the disesteemed is personally fruitless, but it is also so absolutely inevitable; this rage, so generally discounted, so little understood even among the people whose daily bread it is, is one of the things that makes history. Rage can only with difficulty, and never entirely, be brought under the domination of the intelligence and is therefore not susceptible to any arguments whatever. prejudice racism rage blacks anger race-relations race James Baldwin
1136e10 Hawai'i has often been called a melting pot, but I think of it more as a 'mixed plate'---a scoop of rice with gravy, a scoop of macaroni salad, a piece of mahi-mahi, and a side of kimchi. Many different tastes share the plate, but none of them lose their individual flavor, and together they make up a uniquely 'local' cuisine. This is also, I believe, what America is at its best---a whole greater than the sum of it's parts. mixed-plate honolulu hawaii melting-pot race-relations Alan Brennert
e491d89 "The black world was expanding before me, and I could see now that that world was more than a photonegative of that of the people who believe they are white. "White America" is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies. Sometimes this power is direct (lynching), and sometimes it is insidious (redlining). But however it appears, the power of domination and exclusion is central to the belief in being white, and without it, "white people" would cease to exist for want of reasons." racism blacks whites race-relations power Ta-Nehisi Coates
6a11ba6 I no longer want to believe these problems are too complex for us to make sense of them. racism race-relations Roxane Gay
fa03dfa "Now it happens that both master and man have just enough argument on their respective sides to make it difficult for them to understand each other. The Negro dimly personifies in the white man all his ills and misfortunes; if he is poor, it is because the white man seizes the fruit of his toil; if he is ignorant, it is because the white man gives him neither time nor facilities to learn; and, indeed, if any misfortune happens to him, it is because of some hidden machinations of "white folks." On the other hand, the masters and the masters' sons have never been able to see why the Negro, instead of settling down to be day-laborers for bread and clothes, are infected with a silly desire to rise in the world, and why they are sulky, dissatisfied, and careless, where their fathers were happy and dumb and faithful." race-relations misunderstanding W.E.B. Du Bois
d624427 ...and they had never considered this to be the normal course of history: the influx into Britain of black and brown people frount countries created by Britain. race-relations race-issues Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
60a6844 "Our teacher says we're supposed to be colorblind. That's hard to do if you can see color, isn't it?" "Yeah, I'd say so, but I think your teacher means don't make any assumptions based on color." "Cross on the green and not in between." racism race-relations race Paul Beatty
e96c065 We were laughing but I know that we were afraid of those who loved us most. Our parents resorted to the lash the way flagellants in the plague years resorted to the scourge... The law did not protect us and now, in your time, the law has become an excuse for stopping and frisking you, which is to say for furthering the assault on your body. But a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker. However you call it, the result was our infirmity before the criminal forces of the world. race-relations racism-in-america Ta-Nehisi Coates
5848bee Today even the attitude of the Southern whites toward the blacks is not, as so many assume, in all cases the same; the ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others--usually the sons of the masters--wish to help him to rise. racism race-relations W.E.B. Du Bois
c38eac9 "It is interesting that a guy like W.E.B. Du Bois, who actually did very little, I should imagine, with his hands, wrote about "I am the smoke king." Without the labor, both free and slave, of African Americans this country would still be a wilderness." america poetry us w-e-b-du-bois usa labor united-states race-relations race Nikki Giovanni
4f4490c "How's that training coming along, Griff? Good old Max says you're a natural." Turner frowned. Any time a white man asked you about yourself, they were about to fuck you over." boxing blacks whites race-relations training race Colson Whitehead
26f257e Now, Benny was no eejit. He wasn't expecting the Tunisian nationals to be Irish. What he did expect was darkish people with Irishy personalities. That was not what he got. The Tunisians weren't interested in conforming to Benny's preconceptions. They stubbornly insisted on being themselves. race-relations Eoin Colfer
e0b3a20 "Son," my father said of Obama, "you know the country got to be messed up for them folks to give him the job." racism politics presidents race-relations race Ta-Nehisi Coates
189c935 The implications of the true story are existential and corrosive to our larger national myth. To understand that the most costly war in this country's history was launched in direct opposition to everything the country claims to be, to understand that this war was the product of centuries of enslavement, which is to see an even longer, more total war, is to alter the accepted conception of America as a beacon of freedom. How does one face this truth or forge a national identity out of it? racism war slavery freedom race-relations race mythology Ta-Nehisi Coates
5307ec8 Any fair consideration of the depth and width of enslavement tempts insanity. First conjure the crime--the generational destruction of human bodies--and all of its related offenses--domestic terrorism, poll taxes, mass incarceration. But then try to imagine being an individual born among the remnants of that crime, among the wronged, among the plundered, and feeling the gravity of that crime all around and seeing it in the sideways glances of the perpetrators of that crime and overhearing it in their whispers and watching these people, at best, denying their power to address the crime and, at worst, denying that any crime had occurred at all, even as their entire lives revolve around the fact of a robbery so large that it is written in our very names. This is not a thought experiment. America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to a plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered. slavery history america whiteness american-history race-relations race exploitation Ta-Nehisi Coates
09a1745 All white people, I think, are implicated in these things so long as we participate in America in a normal way and attempt to go on leading normal lives while any one race is being cheated and tormented. But I now believe that we will probably go on leading our normal lives, and will go on participating in our nation in a normal way, unless there comes a time where Negroes can compel us by methods of extraordinary pressure to interrupt our pleasure. equality jonathan-kozol white-people white-supremacy race-and-racism-in-america white white-privilege race-relations race Jonathan Kozol
5464541 How stupid she had been ever to have thought that she could marry and perhaps have children in a land where every dark child was handicapped at the start by the shroud of color! She saw, suddenly, the giving birth to little, helpless, unprotesting Negro children as a sin, an unforgivable outrage. More black folk to suffer indignities. More dark bodies for mobs to lynch. racism blacks race-relations race Nella Larsen
8eca955 "You can't write an honest novel about race in this country. If you write about how people are really affected by race, it'll be too obvious. Black writers who do literary fiction in this country, all three of them, not the ten thousand who write those bullshit ghetto books with the bright covers, have two choices: they can do precious or they can do pretentious. When you do neither, nobody knows what to do with you. So if you're going to write about race, you have to make sure it's so lyrical and subtle that the reader who doesn't read between the lines won't even know it's about race. You know, a Proustian meditation, all watery and fuzzy, that at the end just leaves you feeling watery and fuzzy." "Or just find a white writer. White writers can be blunt about race and get all activist because their anger isn't threatening." race-relations literature-about-literature race-in-america race Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
b60b35d Maggie knew Betsy was a female crusader, but also knew that many times crusaders like her were only interested in their own personal equality. social-justice suffragette race-relations Beverly Jenkins
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