Race In America Quotes

• No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.

  Booker T. Washington

  Inspirational, Work, Writing

  Address at Atlanta International Exposition, Atlanta, Ga., 18 Sept. 1895

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• A lot of people want to change the world, but only a few people want to change themselves. When it comes to the issue of race in America, we have to do both.

  Bill Bradley

  America, Issues, Race

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• We treat racism in this country like it's a style that America went through. Like flared legs and lava lamps. Oh, that crazy thing we did. We were hanging black people. We treat it like a fad instead of a disease that eradicates millions of people. You've got to get it at a lab, and study it, and see its origins, and see what it's immune to and what breaks it down.

  Chris Rock

  Country, Crazy, America

  Interview with Frank Rich, www.vulture.com. November 30, 2014.

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• Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.

  Junot Diaz

  Book, Thinking, Two

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• Yeah, I love being famous. It's almost like being white, y'know?

  Chris Rock

  Funny, Humor, White

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• What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice.

  Carter G. Woodson

  Religious, Hate, Race

  Carter G. Woodson (2008). “Negro Makers of History”, p.20, Wildside Press LLC

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• I certainly wasn't seeking any degree, the way a college confers a status symbol upon its students. My homemade education gave me, with every additional book that I read, a little bit more sensitivity to the deafness, dumbness and blindness that was afflicting the black race in America. Not long ago, an English writer telephoned me, asking questions. One was, "What's your alma mater?" I told him, "Books.

  Alex Haley

  Book, College, Asking Questions

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• Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.

  Michelle Alexander

  Mean, Men, America

  "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness". Book by Michelle Alexander, www.huffingtonpost.com. January 5, 2010.

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• Well, the white race in America is the same way. As individuals it is impossible for them to escape the collective crime committed against the Negroes in this country, collectively.

  Malcolm X

  Country, Race, White

  Interview with Robert Penn Warren, whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu. June 2, 1964.

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• To take on the question of race in America and believe that you could transform this country so that it would actually be a place that was welcoming for everyone that was here, including dealing with the history of slavery and the kind of oppression this country is based on, that's an amazing moment to begin to find your own political ideals.

  Amber Hollibaugh

  Country, Believe, Race

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• How you start is important, very important, but in the end it is how you finish that counts. It is easier to be a self-starter than a self-finisher. The victor in the race is not the one who dashes off swiftest but the one who leads at the finish. In the race for success, speed is less important than stamina. The sticker outlasts the sprinter in life's race. In America we breed many hares but not so many tortoises.

  B. C. Forbes

  Perseverance, Self, America

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• Emancipation came to the colored race in America as a war measure. It was an act of military necessity. Manifestly it would have come without war, in the slower process of humanitarian reform and social enlightenment.

  Wendell Willkie

  Military, War, Race

  Wendell L. Willkie (1943). “Prefaces TO PEACE”

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• The question 'Why white kids love hip-hop?' forces us immediately to deal with the historical weight of race in America. On the surface people see hip-hop and race as nothing new. I think the ways young white Americans are engaging hip-hop suggest something more.

  Bakari Kitwana

  Kids, Thinking, Race

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• I said that when I looked at photographs of the firefighters who went into the Twin Towers, their faces looked to me like Irish faces. I hadn't yet learnt how careful outsiders have to be when talking about race in America, and I'd put my foot in it. Someone stood up and said aggressively, 'What do you mean by Irish faces?'

  Colm Toibin

  Mean, Talking, Feet

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• 'Get Out' takes on the task of exploring race in America, something that hasn't really been done within the genre since 'Night of the Living Dead' 47 years ago.

  Jordan Peele

  Night, Years, America

  Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com

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• In nothing was slavery so savage and relentless as in its attempted destruction of the family instincts of the Negro race in America. Individuals, not families; shelters, not homes; herding, not marriages, were the cardinal sins in that system of horrors.

  Fannie Barrier Williams

  Family, Home, Race

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• I always tell young people in particular: Do not say that nothing's changed when it comes to race in America, unless you lived through being a black man in the 1950s or '60s or '70s.

  Barack Obama

  Men, Race, America

  "President Obama's WTF Episode Helped Marc Maron Set a New Record" by Matt Patches, www.esquire.com. June 23, 2015.

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• The paradox of race in America is that our common destiny is more pronounced and imperiled precisely when our divisions are deeper.

  Cornel West

  Destiny, Race, America

  Cornel West (2000). “Race Matters”, p.4, Beacon Press

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• Race in America is not a problem you can go over, or around or under. You've got to go through it.

  Mitch Landrieu

  Race, America, Problem

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• Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college.

  Barack Obama

  School, Kids, College

  "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, edition.cnn.com. July 27, 2008.

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• I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.

  Richard Rodriguez

  Writing, Race, America

  Richard Rodriguez (2003). “Brown: The Last Discovery of America”, p.8, Penguin

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• Ignorance of how we are shaped racially is the first sign of privilege. In other words. It is a privilege to ignore the consequences of race in America.

  Tim Wise

  Ignorance, Race, White Privilege

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• I've had a dozen people tell me, maybe more, 'What would have happened if Michael Brown had shot and killed Darren Wilson? Do you think he would be free right now? Do you think he would not have been charged by now?' People just see this manifest double-standard in front of them that's coming at the long line of a whole bunch of grievances that have built up over time because of the dynamics of Ferguson and frankly, the dynamics of race in America more broadly.

  Chris Hayes

  Thinking, America, Race

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