To sit back and do nothing is to cooperate with the oppressor.

We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them.

I think I'm the only 65-year-old actress in Los Angeles who hasn't had plastic surgery, so somebody's gotta play the old-lady parts!

Somebody has to wear the black hat and give the audience someone to shake their fists at. They want someone to hate. And if that's what you want to pay me to do, I'm happy to do it!

We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Racism is not genetical. It has everything to do with power.

Racism is a learned affliction and anything that is learned can be unlearned

White people’s number one freedom, in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. We don’t have to learn about those who are other than white. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that we’re ignorant.