Racism Quotes - Page 17

• If black people mistrust white people, they are mistrusting racism, and that is appropriate.

  Jasmine Guy

  White, People, Black

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• I think there are universal principles that we should want to understand, but that are not necessarily good for us. We could recognise universal propensities which current cultures can't fully eradicate, which we would want to eradicate if we could. Let's say, a tendency for tribal violence. Or racism.

  Sam Harris

  Thinking, Principles, Culture

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• I've written 18 books, mostly dealing with issues of social justice, ending racism, feminism, and cultural criticism.

  Bell Hooks

  Book, Issues, Justice

  "A chat with the Author of "All About Love: New Visions"". CNN Chat Room, www.cnn.com. February 17, 2000.

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• We Negro writers, just by being black, have been on the blacklist all our lives. Censorship for us begins at the color line.

  Langston Hughes

  Color, Poetry, Black

  Langston Hughes (2002). “Essays on art, race, politics, and world affairs”

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• When the doors of opportunity swing open, we must make sure that we are not too drunk or too indifferent to walk through.

  Jesse Jackson

  Opportunity, Swings, Doors

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• My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic - and I think psychotic - way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know.

  James Earl Jones

  Grandmother, Thinking, Taught Us

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• I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.

  Quincy Jones

  Years, Economics, Found

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• 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.

  James A. Baldwin

  Suicidal, Mean, Ideas

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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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• Racism is a doctrine of, by and for brutes.

  Ayn Rand

  Doctrine, Brutes

  Ayn Rand (1999). “The Return of the Primitive: The Anti-Industrial Revolution”, p.148, Penguin

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• It might sound naive to suggest that whether you order a chicken patty or a veggie burger is a profoundly important decision. Then again, it certainly would have sounded fantastic if in the 1950's you were told that where you sat in a restaurant or on a bus could begin to uproot racism.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Order, Decision, Important

  "Eating Animals". Book by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2009.

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• Taking the continent as a whole, this religious tension may be responsible for the revival of the commonest racial feeling. Africa is divided into Black and White, and the names that are substituted- Africa south of the Sahara, Africa north of the Sahara- do not manage to hide this latent racism. Here, it is affirmed that White Africa has a thousand-year-old tradition of culture; that she is Mediterranean, that she is a continuation of Europe and that she shares in Graeco-Latin civilization. Black Africa is looked on as a region that is inert, brutal, uncivilized - in a word, savage.

  Frantz Fanon

  Religious, Latin, Black And White

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• I do the very best I can to look upon life with optimism and hope and looking forward to a better day, but I don't think there is anything such as complete happiness. It pains me that there is still a lot of Klan activity and racism. I think when you say you're happy, you have everything that you need and everything that you want, and nothing more to wish for. I haven't reached that stage yet.

  Rosa Parks

  Positive, Pain, Thinking

  "Standing Up for Freedom". Academy of Achievement Interview, October 31, 2005.

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• You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.

  Arthur Ashe

  Sports, Learning, Equality

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• Love is what we are born with. Fear is what we learn. The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts. Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.

  Marianne Williamson

  Love, God, Spiritual

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• Poverty is a weapon of mass destruction. Joblessness is a weapon of mass destruction, homelessness, a weapon of mass destruction... racism, a weapon of mass destruction, fear, a weapon of mass destruction. We must disarm these weapons and renew our commitment to quality public schools and dedicated teachers and good housing and quality health care and decent jobs and stronger neighborhoods.

  Dennis Kucinich

  Teacher, Jobs, Teaching

  "House Divided: Kucinich Delegates Block Kerry From Receiving Unanimous Nomination". "Democracy now" with Amy Goodman, www.democracynow.org. July 29, 2004.

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• Age-based retirement arbitrarily severs productive persons from their livelihood, squanders their talents, scars their health, strains an already overburdened Social Security system, and drives many elderly people into poverty and despair. Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.

  Claude Pepper

  Retirement, Security Systems, Elderly

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• I mean a racist, hate-filled host who is openly trying to get people to be violent would have zero viewers in the America I know and love.

  Glenn Beck

  Zero, Hate, Mean

  "Birth Pangs". "The Glenn Beck Program", www.foxnews.com. November 8, 2010.

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• Every time one of us starts talking about more effective immigration controls, somebody else throws up the Statue of Liberty, how we're a nation of immigrants and all of that. The debate takes on tinges of racism, emotion.

  Alan K. Simpson

  Talking, Liberty, Immigration

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• I refuse to believe in a god who is the primary cause of conflict in the world, preaches racism, sexism, homophobia, and ignorance, and then sends me to hell if I'm 'bad'.

  Mark Fuhrman

  Religious, Atheist, Believe

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• The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.

  Maya Angelou

  Justice, Diversity, Mind

  Maya Angelou (2011). “Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now”, p.57, Bantam

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• Anything that is as old as racism is in the blood line of the nation. It's not any superficial thing-that attitude is in the blood and we have to educate about it.

  Nannie Helen Burroughs

  Attitude, Superficial Things, Blood

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• It is too often forgotten that when the Europeans gained enough maritime skills and gunpowder to conquer most of the world, they not only colonized the bulk of the world's people but they colonized the interpretation of history itself. Human history was rewritten to favor them at the expense of other people. The roots of modern racism can be traced to this conquest and colonization.

  John Henrik Clarke

  Skills, Roots, People

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• Racism cannot be separated from capitalism.

  Angela Davis

  Justice, Diversity, Culture

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• If we say, as we do, that no one in this country intends for racism to lead to genocide, the effects of racism are genocidal, regardless of our intentions.

  John Howard Griffin

  Country, Justice, Genocide

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