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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.
dbfb9f8 Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition. racism stupidity religion dislikes scepticism superstition Christopher Hitchens
b73e6ec Men build too many walls and not enough bridges. hatred misattributed-to-isaac-newton understanding sympathy racism men hate empathy compassion love inspirational culture-wars bridges misattributed intolerance cultures walls tolerance bigotry culture separation Joseph Fort Newton
8f25c6d Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice. racism white-privilege racism-in-america Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
c05eee7 Achievement has no color racism inspirational achievement Abraham Lincoln
fe2889e Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. racism truth Harper Lee
625b856 I am convinced that imprisonment is a way of pretending to solve the problem of crime. It does nothing for the victims of crime, but perpetuates the idea of retribution, thus maintaining the endless cycle of violence in our culture. It is a cruel and useless substitute for the elimination of those conditions--poverty, unemployment, homelessness, desperation, racism, greed--which are at the root of most punished crime. The crimes of the rich and powerful go mostly unpunished. It must surely be a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit that even a small number of those men and women in the hell of the prison system survive it and hold on to their humanity. racism poverty greed criminal-justice-system cycle-of-violence imprisonment retribution homelessness unemployment jail incarceration punishment justice prison desperation Howard Zinn
c40b043 Whoever debases others is debasing himself. racism love James Baldwin
98aa789 I'd have wasted a lot of time and trouble before I learned that the best way to take all people, black or white, is to take them for what they think they are, then leave them alone. racism William Faulkner
7b2b541 "The growing number of gated communities in our nation is but one example of the obsession with safety. With guards at the gate, individuals still have bars and elaborate internal security systems. Americans spend more than thirty billion dollars a year on security. When I have stayed with friends in these communities and inquired as to whether all the security is in response to an actual danger I am told "not really," that it is the fear of threat rather than a real threat that is the catalyst for an obsession with safety that borders on madness. Culturally we bear witness to this madness every day. We can all tell endless stories of how it makes itself known in everyday life. For example, an adult white male answers the door when a young Asian male rings the bell. We live in a culture where without responding to any gesture of aggression or hostility on the part of the stranger, who is simply lost and trying to find the correct address, the white male shoots him, believing he is protecting his life and his property. This is an everyday example of madness. The person who is really the threat here is the home owner who has been so well socialized by the thinking of white supremacy, of capitalism, of patriarchy that he can no longer respond rationally. White supremacy has taught him that all people of color are threats irrespective of their behavior. Capitalism has taught him that, at all costs, his property can and must be protected. Patriarchy has taught him that his masculinity has to be proved by the willingness to conquer fear through aggression; that it would be unmanly to ask questions before taking action. Mass media then brings us the news of this in a newspeak manner that sounds almost jocular and celebratory, as though no tragedy has happened, as though the sacrifice of a young life was necessary to uphold property values and white patriarchal honor. Viewers are encouraged feel sympathy for the white male home owner who made a mistake. The fact that this mistake led to the violent death of an innocent young man does not register; the narrative is worded in a manner that encourages viewers to identify with the one who made the mistake by doing what we are led to feel we might all do to "protect our property at all costs from any sense of perceived threat. " This is what the worship of death looks like." racism love white-supremacy patriarchy media Bell Hooks
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
327b45e Stolen bodies working stolen land. It was an engine that did not stop, its hungry boiler fed with blood. racism slavery native-american-genocide Colson Whitehead
3babefd It was awful to be Negro and have no control over my life. It was brutal to be young and already trained to sit quietly and listen to charges brought against my color with no chance of defense. We should all be dead. I thought I should like to see us all dead, one on top of the other. A pyramid of flesh with the whitefolks on the bottom, as the broad base, then the Indians with their silly tomahawks and teepees and wigwams and treaties, the Negroes with their mops and recipes and cotton sacks and spirituals sticking out of their mouths. The Dutch children should all stumble in their wooden shoes and break their necks. The French should choke to death on the Louisiana Purchase (1803) while silkworms ate all the Chinese with their stupid pigtails. As a species, we were an abomination. All of us. racism rage youth i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings maya-angelou Maya Angelou
0313c03 The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage? racism same-sex-marriage Frederick Douglass
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.
ca07032 The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition. racism Christopher Hitchens
ce364b5 Racism was not a problem on the Discworld, because--what with trolls and dwarfs and so on--speciesism was more interesting. Black and white lived in perfect harmony and ganged up on green. racism humour speciesism Terry Pratchett
27b012f To give preference to the life of a being simply because that being is a member of our species would put us in the same position as racists who give preference to those who are members of their race. racism ethics Peter Singer
485584c "The Cold Within" Six humans trapped in happenstance In dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story's told. The first woman held hers back For of the faces around the fire, She noticed one was black. The next man looking across the way Saw not one of his church, And couldn't bring himself to give The fire his stick of birch. The third one sat in tattered clothes He gave his coat a hitch, Why should his log be put to use, To warm the idle rich? The rich man just sat back and thought Of the wealth he had in store, And how to keep what he had earned, From the lazy, shiftless poor. The black man's face bespoke revenge As the fire passed from sight, For all he saw in his stick of wood Was a chance to spite the white. The last man of this forlorn group Did naught except for gain, Giving only to those who gave, Was how he played the game. The logs held tight in death's still hands Was proof of human sin, racism religion judgemental James Patrick Kinney
72eb6cc That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn. racism Barack Obama
dc9bdc1 What age is a black boy when he learns he's scary? racism Jonathan Lethem
76d200d The needs of a society determine its ethics, and in the Black American ghettos the hero is that man who is offered only the crumbs from his country's table but by ingenuity and courage is able to take for himself a Lucullan feast. Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated. We know that they have put to use their full mental and physical powers. Each single gain feeds into the gains of the body collective. racism i-know-why-the-caged-bird-sings maya-angelou perspective Maya Angelou
2dcded4 But now what? Why, now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! And why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this your laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and myself, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do, in Kentucky, and none can say to him nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, anymore than I have any father. But I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me! racism human-rights social-justice slavery Harriet Beecher Stowe
711fa7b Like the Nazis, the cadres of jihad have a death wish that sets the seal on their nihilism. The goal of a world run by an oligarchy in possession of Teutonic genes, who may kill or enslave other 'races' according to need, is not more unrealizable than the idea that a single state, let alone the globe itself, could be governed according to the dictates of an allegedly holy book. This mad scheme begins by denying itself the talents (and the rights) of half the population, views with superstitious horror the charging of interest, and invokes the right of Muslims to subject nonbelievers to special taxes and confiscations. Not even Afghanistan or Somalia, scenes of the furthest advances yet made by pro-caliphate forces, could be governed for long in this way without setting new standards for beggary and decline. racism islamic-banking somalia caliphate death-of-osama-bin-laden nazis theocracy nihilism osama-bin-laden jihad nazism fascism islam Christopher Hitchens
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
336feaf Whose little boy are you? racism youth religion god harlem james-baldwin renaissance institution epiphany coming-of-age black church James Baldwin
a8cc380 Andy once clipped a magazine article about how black dogs are always the last to be adopted at shelters and, therefore, more likely to be put down. Which is totally Dog Racism, if you ask me. dogs racism animals black Stephanie Perkins
69c27d6 Yet it is true--skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity--like a talking pig or a mathematical horse. racism Susanna Clarke
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
e0d1cb1 Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty. prejudice racism hope ignorance Martin Luther King Jr.
eef3156 At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break will then be rendered wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state as we may hope, than the Caucasian and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as at present between the negro or Australian and the gorilla. racism negroes population-control racial-superiority negro darwinism Charles Darwin
1194be0 Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty....A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles. racism Toni Morrison
95e5b1d "It must be remembered that in those great days I was considered to be an "integrationist" - this was never, quite, my own idea of myself - and Malcolm was considered to be a "racist in reverse." This formulation, in terms of power - and power is the arena in which racism is acted out - means absolutely nothing: it may even be described as a cowardly formulation. The powerless, by definition, can never be "racists," for they can never make the world pay for what they feel or fear except by the suicidal endeavor which makes them fanatics or revolutionaries, or both." racism James Baldwin
9b5b359 [Chief White Halfoat:] Racial prejudice is a terrible thing, Yossarian. It really is. It's a terrible thing to treat a decent, loyal Indian like a nigger, kike, wop, or spic. racism indian Joseph Heller
519c8df We did not hesitate to call our movement an army. But it was a special army, with no supplies but its sincerity, no uniform but its determination, no arsenal except its faith, no currency but its conscience. hatred racism nonviolence segregation civil-rights-movement civil-rights racism-in-america peace conscience resistance protest Martin Luther King Jr.
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
447cce7 The rhetoric of 'law and order' was first mobilized in the late 1950s as Southern governors and law enforcement officials attempted to generate and mobilize white opposition to the Civil Rights Movement. In the years following Brown v. Board of Education, civil rights activists used direct-action tactics in an effort to force reluctant Southern States to desegregate public facilities. Southern governors and law enforcement officials often characterized these tactics as criminal and argued that the rise of the Civil Rights Movement was indicative of a breakdown of law and order. Support of civil rights legislation was derided by Southern conservatives as merely 'rewarding lawbreakers.' For more than a decade - from the mid 1950s until the late 1960s - conservatives systematically and strategically linked opposition to civil rights legislation to calls for law and order, arguing that Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of civil disobedience was a leading cause of crime. racism civil-rights-movement law-and-order southern-governors Michelle Alexander
046a985 We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.... We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation) racism jingoism new-worlds imperialism space-exploration science-fiction self-image Stanisław Lem
40d9a0c But race is not biology; race is sociology. Race is not genotype; race is phenotype. Race matters because of racism. And racism is absurd because it's about how you look. Not about the blood you have. It's about the shade of your skin and the shape of your nose and the kink of your hair. racism Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
e1da61c In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were simply a member of a culture that at one time normalized that behavior, it shaped us. We can't undo that level of dehumanizing in one or two generations. I believe Black Lives Matter is a movement to rehumanize black citizens. All lives matter, but not all lives need to be pulled back into moral inclusion. Not all people were subjected to the psychological process of demonizing and being made less than human so we could justify the inhumane practice of slavery. racism slavery black-lives-matter inclusion dehumanization Brené Brown
adce0fa She wanted to get at the hate of them all, to pry at it and work at it until she found a little chink, and then pull out a pebble or a stone or a brick and then a part of the wall, and, once started, the whole edifice might roar down and be done away with. hatred racism Ray Bradbury
70c84e6 I did not tell you that it would be okay, because I have never believed it would be okay. What I told you is what your grandparents tried to tell me: that this is your country, that this is your world, that this is your body, and you must find some way to live within the all of it. coping racism resilience racism-in-america Ta-Nehisi Coates
5834207 "When it comes to the Civil War, all of our popular understanding, our popular history and culture, our great films, the subtext of our arguments are in defiance of its painful truths. It is not a mistake that is one of the most read works of American literature or that is the most revered touchstone of all American film. Both emerge from a need for palliatives and painkillers, an escape from the truth of those five short years in which 750,000 American soldiers were killed, more than all American soldiers killed in all other American wars combined, in a war declared for the cause of expanding "African slavery." That war was inaugurated not reluctantly, but lustily, by men who believed property in humans to be the cornerstone of civilization, to be an edict of God, and so delivered their own children to his maw. And when that war was done, the now-defeated God lived on, honored through the human sacrifice of lynching and racist pogroms. The history breaks the myth. And so the history is ignored, and fictions are weaved into our art and politics that dress villainy in martyrdom and transform banditry into chivalry, and so strong are these fictions that their emblem, the stars and bars, darkens front porches and state capitol buildings across the land to this day." racism slavery history civil-war race myths Ta-Nehisi Coates
4f1ea5c However much history may be invoked in support of these policies (affirmative action), policy can apply to history but can only apply to the present or the future. The past may be many things, but it is clearly irrevocable. Its sins can no more be purged than its achievements can be expunged. Those who suffered in centuries past are as much beyond our help as those who sinned are beyond our retribution. racism civil-rights Thomas Sowell
12d1beb English does not distinguish between arrogant-up (irreverence toward the temporarily powerful) and arrogant-down (directed at the small guy). racism bill-o-reilly blue-collar-snobbery egalitarianism proud-ignorance tea-party-movement pride-and-prejudice narcissism elitism pride Nassim Nicholas Taleb
117d60c Should I, too, prefer the title of 'non-Jewish Jew'? For some time, I would have identified myself strongly with the attitude expressed by Rosa Luxemburg, writing from prison in 1917 to her anguished friend Mathilde Wurm: An inordinate proportion of the Marxists I have known would probably have formulated their own views in much the same way. It was almost a point of honor not to engage in 'thinking with the blood,' to borrow a notable phrase from D.H. Lawrence, and to immerse Jewishness in other and wider struggles. Indeed, the old canard about 'rootless cosmopolitanism' finds a perverse sort of endorsement in Jewish internationalism: the more emphatically somebody stresses that sort of rhetoric about the suffering of others, the more likely I would be to assume that the speaker was a Jew. Does this mean that I think there are Jewish 'characteristics'? Yes, I think it must mean that. racism suffering empathy compassion africans dh-lawrence mathilde-verne plantations rootless-cosmopolitanism rosa-luxemburg internationalism jewish-question victims marxism europeans race prison jews Christopher Hitchens
2200270 The Constitution gives you the right, as a white man, to have a rifle in your home. The Constitution gives you the right to protect yourself. Why is it 'ominous' when black people even talk of having rifles? Why don't we have the right to self-defense? Is it because maybe you know we're going to have to defend ourselves against you? racism malcolmx gun-control James Baldwin
9e2df3e Ah sortay jist laugh whin some cats say that racism's an English thing and we're aw Jock Tamson's bairn up here . . . it's likesay pure shite man, gadges talkin through their erses. racism scotland Irvine Welsh
4b5a64f White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession of some intrinsic value that black people need, or want. And this assumption--which, for example, makes the solution to the Negro problem depend on the speed with which Negroes accept and adopt white standards--is revealed in all kinds of striking ways, from Bobby Kennedy's assurance that a Negro can become President in forty years to the unfortunate tone of warm congratulation with which so many liberals address their Negro equals. racism white-people James Baldwin
5785037 In the beginning--and neither can this be overstated--a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not know what he has done to merit it. And when he realizes that the treatment accorded him has nothing to do with anything he has done, that the attempt of white people to destroy him--for that is what it is--is utterly gratuitous, it is not hard for him to think of white people as devils. racism James Baldwin
5ff2d64 Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes. racism Ayn Rand
d92adaa True confession: The reason we don't talk about race is because we do not speak a common language. racism Jodi Picoult
c0c1a0d The question of whether one alleges the Superiority or Inferiority of any given race is irrelevant; racism has only one psychological root: the racist's sense of his own Inferiority. racism psychological Ayn Rand
cf2d7b7 Racism negates two aspects of man's life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination. racism reason Ayn Rand
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
d586b9d We invoke the words of Jefferson and Lincoln because they say something about our legacy and our traditions. We do this because we recognize our links to the past--at least when they flatter us. But black history does not flatter American democracy; it chastens it. The popular mocking of reparations as a harebrained scheme authored by wild-eyed lefties and intellectually unserious black nationalists is fear masquerading as laughter. Black nationalists have always perceived something unmentionable about America that integrationists dare not acknowledge --that white supremacy is not merely the work of hotheaded demagogues, or a matter of false consciousness, but a force so fundamental to America that it is difficult to imagine the country without it. racism history america reparations white-supremacy race democracy Ta-Nehisi Coates
f00ab2d One would never defeat one's circumstances by working and saving one's pennies; one would never, by working, acquire that many pennies, and, besides, the social treatment accorded even the most successful Negroes proved that one needed, in order to be free, something more than a bank account. One needed a handle, a lever, a means of inspiring fear. It was absolutely clear that the police would whip you and take you in as long as they could get away with it, and that everyone else--housewives, taxi-drivers, elevator boys, dishwashers, bartenders, lawyers, judges, doctors, and grocers--would never, by the operation of any generous human feeling, cease to use you as an outlet for his frustrations and hostilities. racism poverty James Baldwin
7834d38 I feel that for white America to understand the significance of the problem of the Negro will take a bigger and tougher America than any we have yet known. I feel that America's past is too shallow, her national character too superficially optimistic, her very morality too suffused with color hate for her to accomplish so vast and complex a task. Culturally the Negro represents a paradox: Though he is an organic part of the nation, he is excluded by the ride and direction of American culture. Frankly, it is felt to be right to exclude him, and it if felt to be wrong to admit him freely. Therefore if, within the confines of its present culture, the nation ever seeks to purge itself of its color hate, it will find itself at war with itself, convulsed by a spasm of emotional and moral confusion. If the nation ever finds itself examining its real relation to the Negro, it will find itself doing infinitely more than that; for the anti-Negro attitude of whites represents but a tiny part - though a symbolically significant one - of the moral attitude of the nation. Our too-young and too-new America, lusty because it is lonely, aggressive because it is afraid, insists upon seeing the world in terms of good and bad, the holy and the evil, the high and the low, the white and the black; our America is frightened of fact, of history, of processes, of necessity. It hugs the easy way of damning those whom it cannot understand, of excluding those who look different, and it salves its conscience with a self-draped cloak of righteousness. Am I damning my native land? No; for I, too, share these faults of character! And I really do not think that America, adolescent and cocksure, a stranger to suffering and travail, an enemy of passion and sacrifice, is ready to probe into its most fundamental beliefs. racism slavery blacklivesmatter melting-pot racial-prejudice lgbtqia lgbtq civil-rights immigrants immigration racism-in-america refugees Richard Wright
6408119 Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest--fractionally more brave, one might say--about that 'other' cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to atoms between the upper and nether millstones of Hitlerism and Stalinism. One of the most objective chroniclers is Professor Timothy Snyder of Yale University. In his view, it is still 'Operation Reinhardt,' or the planned destruction of Polish Jewry, that is to be considered as the centerpiece of what we commonly call the Holocaust, in which of the estimated 5.7 million Jewish dead, 'roughly three million were prewar Polish citizens.' We should not at all allow ourselves to forget the millions of non-Jewish citizens of Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, and other Slav territories who were also massacred. But for me the salient fact remains that anti-Semitism was the regnant, essential, organizing principle of all the other National Socialist race theories. It is thus not to be thought of as just one prejudice among many. prejudice racism history bravery honesty accuracy belarus berlin-wall operation-reinhard polish-jews slavic-peoples timothy-d-snyder yale-university national-socialism massacre historians ukraine poland holocaust nazism stalinism antisemitism jews russia Christopher Hitchens
358ccc2 "Mrs. Clinton, speaking to a black church audience on Martin Luther King Day last year, did describe President George W. Bush as treating the Congress of the United States like 'a plantation,' adding in a significant tone of voice that 'you racism politics african-americans plantation barack-obama martin-luther-king-jr hillary-clinton iowa new-hampshire united-states-elections-2008 george-w-bush united-states hypocrisy Christopher Hitchens
4ad7e0b As I squatted on the grass at the edge of the woods, the pee felt hot between my legs. I watched in puddle in the dirt, the smell of it rising into the night. There was no difference between my piss and June's. That's what i thought when I looked at the dark circle on the ground. Piss is Piss. racism Sue Monk Kidd
ef76878 The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. racism feminism intersectionality Audre Lorde
1744c24 "What if the differences between social strata stem not from genomics or inherent xcellence or even dollars, but merely differences in knowledge? Would this not mean the whole Pyramid is built on shifting sands?" I speculated such a suggestion could be seen as a serious deviancy. Melphi seemed delited. "Try this for deviancy: fabricants are mirrors held up to purebloods' consciences; what purebloods see reflected there sickens them. So they blame you for holding up the mirror." I hid my shock by asking when purebloods might blame themselves. Melphi relplied, "History suggests, not until they are made to." hatred racism equality perception justice David Mitchell
973d7cf "As bell hooks wrote in a 1998 essay, "Naked Without Shame," about black women's bodies and politics, "Marked by shame, projected as inherent and therefore precluding any possibility of innocence, the black female body was beyond redemption." She points out that since the time of U.S. slavery, men have benefited from positioning black women as naturally promiscuous because it absolves them of guilt when they sexually assault and rape women of color. "[I]t was impossible to ruin that which was received as inherently unworthy, tainted, and soiled," hooks wrote. Women of color, low-income women, immigrant women- these are the women who are not seen as worthy of being placed on a pedestal. It's only our perfect virgins who are valuable, worthy of discourse and worship." racism mysogynoir virginity misogyny Jessica Valenti
4d7d917 Consider the great . is one of the few books that all American children are mandated to read: Jonathan Arac, in his brilliant new study of the teaching of Huck, is quite right to term it 'hyper-canonical.' And Twain is a figure in American history as well as in American letters. The only objectors to his presence in the schoolroom are mediocre or fanatical racial nationalists or 'inclusivists,' like or the Chicago-based , who object to Twain's use--in or out of 'context'--of the expression 'nigger.' An empty and formal 'debate' on this has dragged on for decades and flares up every now and again to bore us. But what if Twain were taught as a whole? He served briefly as a Confederate soldier, and wrote a hilarious and melancholy account, . He went on to make a fortune by publishing the memoirs of . He composed a caustic and brilliant . With he led the Anti-Imperialist League, to oppose and pious and sanguinary war in the Philippines. Some of the pamphlets he wrote for the league can be set alongside those of and for their sheer polemical artistry. In 1900 he had a public exchange with in New York City, in which he attacked American support for the British war in South Africa and British support for the American war in Cuba. Does this count as history? Just try and find any reference to it, not just in textbooks but in more general histories and biographies. The Anti-Imperialist League has gone down the Orwellian memory hole, taking with it a great swirl of truly American passion and intellect, and the grand figure of Twain has become reduced--in part because he upended the vials of ridicule over the national tendency to religious and spiritual quackery, where he discerned what had missed and far anticipated --to that of a drawling, avuncular fabulist. racism history huckleberry-finn mark-twain imperialism united-states Christopher Hitchens
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
d3d334d Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it. But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal. America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing between the white city of democracy and the terrorists, despots, barbarians, and other enemies of civilization. One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much. And it is so easy to look away, to live with the fruits of our history and to ignore the great evil done in all of our names. racism social-justice social-activism foreign-policy american-history patriotism Ta-Nehisi Coates
f827043 But no one could say he hadn't gotten even. He could not count the field women whom he had sexually degraded and demoralized and in whom he had left his seed so their bastard children would be a daily visual reminder of what a plantation white man could do to a plantation black woman whenever he wanted, nor could he count the black men whom he had made fear his blackjack as they would fear Satan himself, making each of them a lifetime enemy of all white people. hatred rape racism fear degrade plantations southern satan crime oppression James Lee Burke
b235650 He was there below me, and, upon my word, to look at him was as edifying as seeing a dog in a parody of breeches and a featherhat, walking on his hind legs. racism Joseph Conrad
5eb0dcf It's only his outside; a man can be honest in any sort of skin. racism race Herman Melville
16cb225 "Snarling an oath from an Icelandic saga, I reclaimed my place at the head of the queue. "Oy!" yelled a punk rocker, with studs in his cranium. "There's a fackin' queue!" Never apologize, advises Lloyd George. Say it again, only this time, ruder. "I know there's a 'fackin' queue'! I already queued in it once and I am going to queue in it again just because Nina Simone over there won't sell me a ruddy ticket!" A colored yeti in a clip-on uniform swooped. "Wassa bovver?" "This old man here reckons his colostomy bag entitles him to jump the queue," said the skinhead, " make racist slurs about the lady of Afro-Caribbean extraction in the advance-travel window." I couldn't believe I was hearing this." racism humor punk skinhead london David Mitchell
d9f1c7f It's often said that those who are unduly bothered by gays are latent homosexuals. Isn't it possible that people obsessed with racism are themselves racist. racism politics Ann Coulter
7826162 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. racism Ta-Nehisi Coates
93ca279 The root of the black man's hatred is rage, and he does not so much had the white man as simply as want the out of his way, and, more than that, out of his children's way. The root of the white man's hatred is terror, a bottomless and nameless terror, which focuses on this dread figure, an entity which lives only in his mind. racism politics race 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
4f11d52 "Of course false-rape allegations have happened. My friend Astra Taylor points out that the most dramatic examples in this country were when white men falsely accused Black men of assaulting white women. Which means that if you want to be indignant on the subject, you'll need to summon up a more complicated picture of how power, blame, and mendacity actually work. ("Feminism: The Men Arrive")" rape racism rape-myths Rebecca Solnit
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
88a6770 The precise ancestry of a black drug dealer or cop killer is irrelevant. His blackness predicts and explains his crime. He reinforces the racist presumption. It is only when that presumption is questioned that a fine analysis of ancestry is invoked. Frederick Douglass was an ordinary nigger while working the fields. But as a famed abolitionist, it was often said that his genius must derive from his white half. racism mixed-ancestry white-supremacy frederick-douglass obama ancestry Ta-Nehisi Coates
9fae599 There was a time in my life when I did a fair bit of work for the tempestuous Lucretia Stewart, then editor of the American Express travel magazine, . Together, we evolved a harmless satire of the slightly driveling style employed by the journalists of tourism. 'Land of Contrasts' was our shorthand for it. ('Jerusalem: an enthralling blend of old and new.' 'South Africa: a harmony in black and white.' 'Belfast, where ancient meets modern.') It was as you can see, no difficult task. I began to notice a few weeks ago that my enemies in the 'peace' movement had decided to borrow from this tattered style book. The mantra, especially in the letters to this newspaper, was: 'Afghanistan, where the world's richest country rains bombs on the world's poorest country.' Poor fools. They should never have tried to beat me at this game. What about, 'Afghanistan, where the world's most open society confronts the world's most closed one'? 'Where American women pilots kill the men who enslave women.' 'Where the world's most indiscriminate bombers are bombed by the world's most accurate ones.' 'Where the largest number of poor people applaud the bombing of their own regime.' I could go on. (I think number four may need a little work.) But there are some suggested contrasts for the 'doves' to paste into their scrapbook. Incidentally, when they look at their scrapbooks they will be able to re-read themselves saying things like, 'The bombing of Kosovo is driving the Serbs into the arms of Milosevic. racism war antiwar-movement apartheid kosovo kosovo-war slobodan-milosevic south-africa war-in-afghanistan-2001-present pacifism Christopher Hitchens
d675c72 But that is the point of white supremacy--to ensure that that which all others achieve with maximal effort, white people (and particularly white men) achieve with minimal qualification. racism white-people white-supremacy race Ta-Nehisi Coates
645076b People didn't call blacks names anymore, at least not to their faces. Italians weren't wops or dagos, and there were no more kikes, Japs, chinks, or spics in polite conversation. Everybody had a group to protest and stick up for them. But women were still being called names by men. Why? Where was our group? It's not fair. racism feminist human-experience Fannie Flagg
23c71ec "No matter how much Steve and I preached about staying legal, most of these men never believed us, and some would grin or wink as we spoke. They thought the CKKKK was like the Klan group their grandfathers belonged to back in the 1920's or 30's, when members could get by with just about anything. That ignorance about the CKKKK extended to the masses of people as well. I received hundreds of phone calls from people wanting me to go out and assault this or that person, for wrongs perceived by the callers. One 65 year old White man called, and after informing me his wife of 67 had left him and moved in with a younger man, demanded that I get some men together and, as the caller put it, "Go Klux 'em," meaning to commit some violent act upon them. A Black girl from Angier called once, saying her boyfriend was dating a White girl, and asked me, "Whut you gone do bout it?" Another elderly White lady called and said that her Black maid was stealing her jewelry, as if that was a classic crime for which the CKKKK should render traditional and just "Klan punishment." It's really incredible. " racism ku-klux-klan Frazier Glenn Miller
df8052d "I have bad news for you, for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and killed tonight. Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice for his fellow human beings, and he died because of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. For those of you who are black--considering the evidence there evidently is that there were white people who were responsible--you can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization--black people amongst black, white people amongst white, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and to replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand with compassion and love. For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and distrust at the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I can only say that I feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man. But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to go beyond these rather difficult times. My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He wrote: "In our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God." What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness; but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black. So I shall ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love--a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times; we've had difficult times in the past; we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; it is not the end of disorder. But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings who abide in our land. racism Robert F. Kennedy
0082382 There is a distinction I am beginning to make in my living between pain and suffering. Pain is an event, an experience that must be recognized, named and then used in some way in order for the experience to change, to be transformed into something else, strength or knowledge or action. Suffering, on the other hand, is the nightmare reliving of unscrutinized and unmetabolized pain. When I live through pain without recognizing it self-consciously, I rob myself of the power that can come from using that pain, the power to fuel some movement beyond it. I condemn myself to reliving that pain over and over and over whenever something close triggers it. And that is suffering, a seemingly inescapable cycle. racism pain suffering Audre Lorde
cdd0e77 ...she was something more- a force, a stable, familiar force like something out of my past which kept me from whirling off into some unknown which I dared not face. It was a most painful position for at the same time Mary reminded me constantly that something was expected of me, some act of leadership, some newsworthy achievement;... racism don-t-give-up speak-out change-the-world revolution Ralph Ellison
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
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
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
bb31f8f Raising Black children -- female and male -- in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not survive. racism self-protection sexism Audre Lorde
e04ba61 And how easy it is to recognize the revenant shapes that the old unchanging enemies--racism, leader worship, superstition--assume when they reappear amongst us (often bodyguarded by their new apologists). racism liberalism superstition Christopher Hitchens
1bc7531 They burnt crosses every night all around us, and a man who'll burn what he prays to, he'll burn anything. racism ku-klux-klan Shelby Foote
7c05a4a Poor health was not just the result of random acts, bad luck, bad behavior or unfortunate genetics. Deliberate public policy decision about housing, education, parks and streets were the key drivers of racial differences in mortality. Crime kept people off the streets and limited their ability to exercise. The lack of grocery stores limited dietary choices. The lack of primary care doctors and specialists in these communities made chronic disease care more difficult. The degradation and loss of hospital services in these communities affected hospital-based outcomes. ... The chronic underfunding of critical health services at Cook County Hospital and other safety-net providers contributed to these poor outcomes as well. The deleterious impact of social structures such as urban poverty and racism on health has been called 'structural violence. racism health-care healthcare David A. Ansell
a552d06 The issue, perhaps, boils down to one of how perceptions or misperceptions of racial difference impact various individuals', or groups of individuals', experience of freedom in America. Some would argue that it goes beyond hampering their 'pursuit of happiness' to outright obliterating it. racism equality freedom happiness demographics-of-united-states eric-garner george-zimmerman kajieme-powell killing-of-black-men-in-america michael-brown new-jim-crow pursuit-of-happiness racial-demographics tamir-rice trayvon-martin troy-anthony-davis mass-incarceration human-rights-day race-and-racism-in-america racial-discrimination diversity justice democracy Aberjhani
276ada6 I want all the books on the shelves. I want the books with dinosaur words like that show the skeletons in our national closet. I want books with the word cunt as well as the word kike. Words don't scare me. Suppressing them does. racism literature redaction suppression misogyny language censorship E.L. Konigsburg
2af040c Their view; it is cosmic. Not of a man here, a child there, but an abstraction: race, land. Not of honorable men but of itself, honor; the abstract is real, the actual is invisible to them. but not good men, this good man. It is their sense of space and time. They see through the here, the now, into the vast black deep beyond, the unchanging. And that is fatal to life. Because eventually there will be no life; there was once only the dust particles in space, the hot hydrogen gases, nothing more, and it will come again. This is an interval, The cosmic process is hurrying on, crushing life back into the granite and methane; the wheel turns for all life. It is all temporary. And they--these madmen--respond to the granite, the dust, the longing of the inanimate; they want to aid abstraction the-abyss racism nihilism nazism Philip K. Dick
3f0d35c Mark, trying his best to distance himself from the cruel and pathetic 21st century, hadn't listened to the news reports, not even when the dark green jeeps and helicopters showed up in town, men dressed in identical uniforms, just like in school, always standing with stony faces, setting up shelters and warning signals and food storage boxes. And as the public service announcements and racist propaganda bloomed onto the screens in every classroom, Mark's only observation was that the United States still had such a long way to go. When times were dire, they resorted to using inaccurate stereotypes and ignorance as a weapon, with an impressionable society always willing to believe without further question. racism war education bigitry box public-service-announcement radiation radioactive screen sheeple storage-box classroom nuclear nuclear-war army military united-states society weapon propaganda ignorance stereotype school Rebecca McNutt
814b528 When did the very first case of racism even occur? When did such blind hatred devour the souls of men and make them turn on their own brothers and sisters? What ever taught them that it was normal to be such monsters? hatred prejudice racism man history human morality sister brother race monster Rebecca McNutt
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
43e62d8 There are hundreds of political prisoners right now in America's jails who were so taken by Malcolm [X's} spirit that they became warriors and the powers that be understood them as warriors. They knew that a lot of these other middle-class [black] leaders were not warriors; they were professionals; they were careerists. But these warriors had callings, and they have paid an incalculable and immeasurable price in those cells. racism leadership african-american-men black-leadership black-liberation-movement black-middle-class black-prophets black-revolutionaries careerists conscientious-objection freedom-fighters industrial-prison-complex mass-incarceration political-advocacy political-prisoners prison-reform martyrs african-americans malcolm-x black-history-month racial-discrimination warriors political-philosophy Cornel West
365dc8e To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease. The nakedness is not an error, nor pathology. The nakedness is the correct and intended result of policy, the predictable upshot of people forced for centuries to live under fear, 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 a 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. It does not matter if the agent of those forces is white or black--what matters is our condition, what matters is the system that makes your body breakable. racism police-brutality Ta-Nehisi Coates
1f0a10e "But why do we say nothing?" Ujunwa asked. She raised her voice and looked at the others. "Why do we always say nothing?" racism sexism Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
ca8d666 <> said Topsy. <> racism oppression Harriet Beecher Stowe
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
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
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
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
d80feef If you are a white person who would like to treat black people as equals in every way--who would like to have a set of associations with blacks that are as positive as those that you have with whites--it requires more than a simple commitment to equality. It requires that you change your life so that you are exposed to minorities on a regular basis and become comfortable with them and familiar with the best of their culture, so that when you want to meet, hire, date, or talk with a member of a minority, you aren't betrayed by your hesitation and discomfort. Taking rapid cognition seriously--acknowledging the incredible power, for good and ill, that first impression play in our lives--requires that we take active steps to manage and control those impressions. racism subconscious-racism Malcolm Gladwell
a7881a7 I believe that the truth of any subject only comes when all sides of the story are put together. racism southern-writers Alice Walker
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
8b619ff He felt like the world didn't want him, like he was born hated, and he was. He was smart, he was funny, he'd never done a bad deed in his life, born innocent just like all the rest of us... but he was black in a white world, and I think somewhere along the way, he stopped feeling like a human being. hatred prejudice racism dehumanization bigotry race Rebecca McNutt
49ccfb8 External explanations of black-white differences -- discrimination or poverty, for example--seem to many to be more amenable to public policy than internal explanations such as culture. Those with this point of view tend to resist cultural explanations but there is yet another reason why some resist understanding the counterproductive effects of an anachronistic culture: Alternative explanations of economic and social lags provide a more satisfying ability to blame all such lags on the sins of others, such as racism or discrimination. Equally important, such external explanations require no painful internal changes in the black population but leave all changes to whites, who are seen as needing to be harangued, threatened, or otherwise forced to change. In short, prevailing explanations provide an alibi for those who lag--and an alibi is for many an enormously valuable asset that they are unlikely to give up easily. racism poverty Thomas Sowell
f4d5821 "If I'm walking down an American street and anyone darker than a peanut shell approaches, I'll say, "Hello." This because, if I don't say it, he or she might think that I'm anxious. Which, of course, I must be, otherwise I'd walk by in silence, just as I do with my fellow Caucasians. Does this make me racist, or simply race conscious? Either way, I'm more afraid of conservatives than I am of black people." -- racism David Sedaris
0e4f32b "If the problem of the twentieth century was, in W. E. B. Du Bois's famous words, "the problem of the color line," then the problem of the twenty-first century is the problem of colorblindness, the refusal to acknowledge the causes and consequences of enduring racial stratification." racism du-bois race Naomi Murakawa
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
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
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
c4d5001 I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in a circus sideshow, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination- indeed, everything and anything except me. racism invisible Ralph Ellison
1af2251 There's a liberal story that limited opportunities, and barriers, lead to employment problems and criminal records, but then there's another story that has to do with norms, behaviors, and oppositional culture. You can't prove the latter statistically, but it still might be true.' Holzer thinks that both arguments contain truth and that one doesn't preclude the other. Fair enough. Suffice it to say, though, that the evidence supporting structural inequality is compelling. In 2001, a researcher sent out black and white job applicants in Milwaukee, randomly assigning them a criminal record. The researcher concluded that a white man with a criminal record had about the same chance of getting a job as a black man without one. Three years later, researchers produced the same results in New York under more rigorous conditions. racism african-american-norms black-culture employment structural-inequality Ta-Nehisi Coates
0ce5ed6 [whiteness] has no real meaning divorced from the machinery of criminal power. The new people were something else before they were white--Catholic, Corsican, Welsh, Mennonite, Jewish--and if all our national hopes have any fulfillment, then they will have to be something else again. Perhaps they will truly become American and create a nobler basis for their myth. I cannot call it. As for now, it must be said that the process of washing the disparate tribes white, the elevation of the belief in being white, was not achieved through wine tastings and ice cream socials, but rather through the pillaging of life, liberty, labor and land; through the flaying of backs; the chaining of limbs; the strangling of dissidents; the destruction of families; the rape of mothers; the sale of children; and various other acts meant, first and foremost, to deny you and me the right to secure and govern our own bodies. The new people are not original in this. Perhaps there has been, at some point in history, some great power whose elevation was exempt from the violent exploitation of other human bodies. If there has been, I have yet to discover it. But this banality of violence can never excuse America, because America makes no claim to the banal. America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing between the white city of democracy and terrorists, despots, barbarians, and other enemies of civilization. One cannot, at once, claim to be superhuman and then plead mortal error. I propose to take our countrymen's claims of American exceptionalism seriously, which is to say I propose subjecting our country to an exceptional moral standard. This is difficult because there exists, all around us, an apparatus urging us to accept American innocence at face value and not to inquire too much. And it is so easy to look away, to live with the fruits of our history and to ignore the great evil done in all of our names. But you and I have never truly had that luxury. racism blackness whiteness american-history black-history racism-in-america race Ta-Nehisi Coates
35856c3 No, I do not weep at the world - I am too busy sharpening my oyster knife. racism Zora Neale Hurston
5bdfacf "How's your grandpa?" "Still worried that your blackness will infect me." "That's the plan. First you, then all the other blondes, and then on to brunettes and redheads. Once we have the womenfolk, all the babies will come out black, too. We all voted on the plan at the last Black Conspirators meeting." racism MaryJanice Davidson
3f7e3f6 If this society ascribes roles to Black men which they are not allowed to fulfill, is it Black women who must bend and alter our lives to compensate, or is it society that needs changing? racism social-change society Audre Lorde
b074158 As a black woman interested in feminist movement, I am often asked whether being black is more important than being a woman; whether feminist struggle to end sexist oppression is more important than the struggle to racism or vice versa. All such questions are rooted in competitive either/or thinking, the belief that the self is formed in opposition to an other...Most people are socialized to think in terms of opposition rather than compatibility. Rather than seeing anti-racist work as totally compatible with working to end sexist oppression, they often see them as two movements competing for first place. racism woman feminism opposition compatibility movement oppression sexism Bell Hooks
95f362b We've been brainwashed into believing that it's a sin to discriminate. But discrimination doesn't mean racism; it means telling unlike things apart. racism Bill Maher
0369e87 After years of working with missionaries, I am tempted to conclude that their endeavors merely prolong a dying race's agonies for ten or twenty years. The merciful plowman shoots a trusty horse grown too old for service. As philanthropists, might it not be our duty to likewise ameliorate the savages' sufferings by hastening their extinction? Think of your Red Indians, Adam, think on the treaties you Americans abrogate & renege on, time & time & time again. More humane, surely & more honest, just to knock the savages on the head & get it over with? racism justifying-genocide justifying-murder oppressors indigenous-peoples missionaries justification genocide David Mitchell
d0371ca The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes-- I am not speaking now of its racial value, another matter altogether-- is that white men do not want their lives, their self-image, or their property threatened. One wishes they would say so more often. racism James Baldwin
44709be "The limitation prompting folly " was an attitude of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable." prejudice racism insularity pride Barbara W. Tuchman
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
ded5850 America's indispensable working class existed as property beyond the realm of politics, leaving white Americans free to trumpet their love of freedom and democratic values. racism slavery working-class racism-in-america 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
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
9e9464f The outcast lepers would like to drag everything down in their ruin. And they become all the more evil, the more you cast them out; and the more you depict them as a court of lemurs who want your ruin, the more they will be outcast. racism outcasts Umberto Eco
53b0e54 "Eventually, some black thinkers believe, this "separation" may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals and in which the white man will no longer load every phrase with unconscious suggestions that he has something to "concede" to black men or that he wants to help black men "overcome" their blackness." racism negro racist white race separation justice John Howard Griffin
cc07507 The espousal of the doctrine of Negro inferiority by the South was primarily because of economic motives and the inter-connected political urge necessary to support slave industry; but to the watching world it sounded like the carefully thought out result of experience and reason; and because of this it was singularly disastrous for modern civilization science and religion, in art and government, as well as in industry. The South could say that the Negro, even when brought into modern civilization, could not be civilized, and that, therefore, he and the other colored peoples of the world were so far inferior to the whites that the white world had a right to rule mankind for their own selfish interests. racism slavery american-blindspot W E B Du Bois
9b3bca8 We cannot shake off three hundred years of fear in three hours. racism history oppression Richard Wright
e959c80 The racism, misogyny, and counter-rationality of the reactionary right in American politics for the last several years is a frightening exhibition of the destructive force of anger deliberately nourished by hate, encouraged to rule thought, invited to control behavior. I hope our republic survives this orgy of self-indulgent rage. racism rage politics Ursula K. Le Guin
690813a When American life is most American it is apt to be most theatrical. racism Ralph Ellison
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
25d43ce It's a shameful, wicked, abominable law, and I'll break it, for one, the first time I get a chance; and I hope I shall have a chance, I do! Things have got to a pretty pass, if a woman can't give a warm supper and a bed to poor, starving creatures, just because they are slaves, and have been abused and oppressed all their lives, poor things! racism equality slavery freedom empathy compassion humanity politics religion Harriet Beecher Stowe
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