Toni Morrison Quotes About Racism

Quotes about: Racism

• There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race - scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct... it has a social function, racism.

  Toni Morrison

  Race, Racism, Social

  "Toni Morrison Breaks Down The Reality Of Race On The Colbert Report" by Jessica Dickerson, www.huffingtonpost.com. November 21, 2014.

• It's important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and so you spend 20 years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Someone says you have no art so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms and so you dredge that up. None of that is necessary. There will always be one more thing.

  Toni Morrison

  Art, Years, Racism

  "Black Studies Center public dialogue. Pt. 2 (A Humanist View)", May 30, 1975.

• In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

  Toni Morrison

  Inspirational, Country, Mean

  The Guardian, January 29, 1992.

• Racism will disappear when it's no longer profitable, and no longer psychologically useful. And when that happens, it'll be gone. But at the moment, people make a lot of money off of it, pro and con.

  Toni Morrison

  Racism, People, Gone

  Source: www.npr.org

• If you take racism away from certain people - I mean, vitriolic racism as well as the sort of social racist - if you take that away, they may have to face something really terrible, misery, self-misery, and deep pain about who they are.

  Toni Morrison

  Pain, Mean, Self

  "Toni Morrison On Human Bondage And A Post-Racial Age". "Tell Me More" with Michel Martin, www.npr.org. December 26, 2008.

• Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not, permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas.

  Toni Morrison

  Ideas, Racism, Typical

  Nobel Prize for Literature Lecture, delivered 7 December 1993

• The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.

  Toni Morrison

  Hate, Race, Play

  Source: www.goodreads.com

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