White Man Quotes - Page 8

It was the law that if a white man was caught trying to educate a Negro slave, he was liable to prosecution entailing a fine of fifty dollars and a jail sentence. . . Our ignorance was the greatest hold the South had on us. We knew we could run away, but what then?

John W. Campbell

Running, Ignorance, Men

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Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pcanet, and other powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and oppression of the white man, as snow before the summer sun.

Tecumseh

Summer, Powerful, Native American

Quoted in Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (1970)

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When a white man in Africa by accident looks into the eyes of a native and sees the human being (which it is the chief preoccupation to avoid), his sense of guilt, which he denies, fumes up in resentment and he brings down the whip.

Doris Lessing

Eye, Men, Justice

The Grass is Singing (1950) ch. 8

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Suppose a white man should come to me and say, "Joseph, I like your horses. I want to buy them." I say to him, "No, my horses suit me; I will not sell them." Then he goes to my neighbor and says to him, "Joseph has some good horses. I want to buy them, but he refuses to sell." My neighbor answers, "Pay me the money and I will sell you Joseph's horses." The white man returns to me and says, "Joseph, I have bought your horses and you must let me have them." If we sold our lands to the government, this is the way they bought them.

Chief Joseph

I Like You, Horse, Native American

Arguing against the right of the US Government to force his people to leave their lands, 1876.

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If you were going to compete successfully in a white man's world, you had to learn to play the white man's game. It was not enough that an Indian be as good as; an Indian had to be better than.

Janet Campbell Hale

Men, Games, Play

Janet Campbell Hale (1987). “The Jailing of Cecelia Capture”, p.58, UNM Press

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When I was growing up in rural Alabama, as a young child, about 50 miles from Montgomery, and we would visit the little town of Troy, or visit Montgomery or Tuskegee, I would see the signs that said, "WHITE MEN - COLORED MEN," "WHITE WOMEN - COLORED WOMEN."And I would come home and say to my mother and father and my grandparents, "Why?" "Why this?" "Why that?" And they would just tell me, "That's just the way it is! Don't get in the way. Don't cause trouble."

John Lewis

Mother, Children, Growing Up

"John Lewis marches on: “Our struggle is a struggle to redeem the soul of America”". Interview with Philip Eil, www.salon.com. August 9, 2016.

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The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross.

James A. Baldwin

Men, Justice, Diversity

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Baseball is very big with my people. It figures. It's the only way we can get to shake a bat at a white man without starting a riot.

Dick Gregory

Baseball, Humorous, Men

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Reefer makes darkies think they're as good as white men.

Harry J. Anslinger

Weed, Marijuana, Men

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The Negro wants to be everything but himself... He wants to integrate with the white man, but he cannot integrate with himself or with his own kind. The Negro wants to lose his identity because he does not know his own identity.

Elijah Muhammad

Men, White, Identity

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They say it's the white man I should fear, But it's my own kind doin' all the killin' here.

Tupac Shakur

Men, Rapper, Kind

Song: Only God Can Judge Me Now, Album: All Eyez on Me, 1996

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...the collective white man had acted like a devil in virtually every contact he had with the world's collective non-white man.

Malcolm X

Men, People, Devil

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.185, Ballantine Books

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I can't turn around without hearing about some 'civil rights advance's White people seem to think the black man ought to be shouting 'hallelujah's Four hundred years the white man has had his foot-long knife in the black man's back — and now the white man starts to wiggle the knife out, maybe six inches! The black man's supposed to be grateful? Why, if the white man jerked the knife out, it's still going to leave a scar!

Malcolm X

Grateful, Men, Thinking

"The Autobiography of Malcolm X".

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If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty.

Chief Joseph

Mother, Teacher, Brother

Lincoln Hall Speech in Washington D.C., January 14, 1879.

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Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun. Will we let ourselves be destroyed in our turn without a struggle, give up our homes, our country bequeathed to us by the Great Spirit, the graves of our dead and everything that is dear and sacred to us? I know you will cry with me, 'Never! Never!'

Tecumseh

Summer, Country, Giving Up

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...What we need to do in the community, and in the city, and in the state. We need to stop airing our differences in front of the white man. Put the white man out of our meetings, number one, and then sit down and talk shop with each other. [That's] all you gotta do.

Malcolm X

Powerful, Men, Cities

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We have a common enemy. We have this in common: We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter, and a common discriminator. But once we all realize that we have this common enemy, then we unite on the basis of what we have in common. And what we have foremost in common is that enemy - the white man. He's an enemy to all of us. I know some of you all think that some of them aren't enemies. Time will tell.

Malcolm X

Powerful, Men, Thinking

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It may be quite true that some negroes are better than some white men; but no rational man, cognisant of the facts, believes that the average negro is the equal, still less the superior, of the average white man. And, if this be true, it is simply incredible that, when all his disabilities are removed, and our prognathous relative has a fair field and no favour, as well as no oppressor, he will be able to compete successfully with his bigger-brained and smaller-jawed rival, in a contest which is to be carried on by thoughts and not by bites.

Thomas Huxley

Believe, Men, Thinking

"Emancipation – Black and White". Essay by Thomas Henry Huxley, mathcs.clarku.edu. 1865.

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They asked if I knew what 'conscientious objector' meant. I told them that when the white man asked me to go off somewhere and fight and maybe die to preserve the way the white man treated the black man in America, then my conscience made me object.

Malcolm X

Fighting, Men, America

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.211, Ballantine Books

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The black man in North America was sickest of all politically. He let the white man divide him into such foolishness as considering himself a black 'Democrat,' a black 'Republican,' a black 'Conservative,' or a black 'Liberal' ...when a ten-million black vote bloc could be the deciding balance of power in American politics, because the white man's vote is almost always evenly divided.

Malcolm X

Men, America, Black

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.321, Ballantine Books

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Today's Uncle Tom doesn't wear a handkerchief on his head. This modern, twentieth-century Uncle Thomas now often wears a top hat. He's usually well-dressed and well-educated. He's often the personification of culture and refinement. The twentieth-century Uncle Thomas sometimes speaks with a Yale or Harvard accent. Sometimes he is known as Professor, Doctor, Judge, and Reverend, even Right Reverend Doctor. This twentieth-century Uncle Thomas is a professional Negro -by that I mean his profession is being a Negro for the white man.

Malcolm X

Uncles, Mean, Men

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The white man is not inherently evil, but America's racist society influences him to act evilly. The society has produced and nourishes a psychology which brings out the lowest, most base part of human beings.

Malcolm X

Men, America, People

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.378, Ballantine Books

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It isn't the American white man who is a racist, but it's the American political, economic and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.

Malcolm X

Men, People, Political

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.378, Ballantine Books

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That morning was when I first began to reappraise the 'white man.' It was when I first began to perceive that 'white man,' as commonly used, means complexion only secondarily; primarily it described attitudes and actions.

Malcolm X

Morning, Attitude, Mean

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.341, Ballantine Books

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Here was one of the white man's most characteristic behavior patterns - where black men are concerned. He loves himself so much that he is startled if he discovers that his victims don't share his vainglorious self-opinion.

Malcolm X

Men, Self, People

Malcolm X (2015). “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, p.245, Ballantine Books

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