Quotes About Racism

The problem is that white people see racism as conscious hate, when racism is bigger than that. Racism is a complex system of social and political levers and pulleys set up generations ago to continue working on the behalf of whites at other people's expense, whether whites know/like it or not. Racism is an insidious cultural disease. It is so insidious that it doesn't care if you are a white person who likes Black people; it's still going to find a way to infect how you deal with people who don't look like you.

Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism.

The other thing about the Nights is that it is quite racist. One parentheses is that I think this is one of the negative things that appeal to people, that The Arabian Nights could be used as a disguise for racism. It suited the West. You could smuggle racism into children's literature, you see. The African magician in the story of Aladdin, he's labeled explicitly as the "African Magician." He's not a character but a stereotype, and a lot of this got into nursery literature in this Oriental disguise.

The core of the culture is racism and how black men are viewed. They've always been demonized and seen as threats in our culture. Another holdover from slavery. We've got to deal with that core root of racism and demonization of the upbringing of black men. Black women are not exempt by any means.

I just don't think there's that many people who think it's wrong to have control on our borders. That's not racism. It's not racism to question some of the political correctness today that's going on, to recognize that things are going as well as - for American workers, as they'd like, because people, their frustration is arising from a deep sense of unease that Washington is fiddling while their house is burning.

We're going to fight racism not with racism, but we're going to fight with solidarity. We say we're not going to fight capitalism with black capitalism, but we're going to fight it with socialism.

For most Black people there is still poverty and desperation. The Ghettos still exist, and the proportion of Blacks in prison is still much greater than Whites. Today, there is less overt racism, but the economic injustices create an "institutional racism" which exists even while more Blacks are in high places, such as Condoleeza Rice in Bush's Administration and Obama running for President.

Racism is a way to gain economic advantage at the expense of others. Slavery and plantations may be gone, but racism still allows us to regard those who may keep us from financial gain as less than equals.

The struggle to end sexist oppression that focuses on destroying the cultural basis for such domination strengthens other liberation struggles. Individuals who fight for the eradication of sexism without struggles to end racism or classism undermine their own efforts. Individuals who fight for the eradication of racism or classism while supporting sexist oppression are helping to maintain the cultural basis of all forms of group oppression.

We live in a racist world. Everywhere there is racism. We say to White people, "You really have to examine how you behave in the world. You are responsible for deconstructing internalized racism and being part of a ongoing process of decolonizing yourself.

Although much of the media have their antennae out to pick up anything that might be construed as racism against blacks, they resolutely ignore even the most blatant racism by blacks against others.

You expect to cop a bit wherever you go. In the past there hasn't been any racism or any racist comments that I've seen. I'm expecting a tough time, as we get everywhere we go, but racism hasn't been a problem before.

Even when black youth gangs target white strangers on the streets and spew out racial hatred as they batter them and rob them, mayors, police chiefs and the media tiptoe around their racism and many in the media either don't cover these stories or leave out the race and racism involved.

Your decision to place your law enforcement resources in these communities is racism, but nobody has called people out on this. The law itself is not racist. But people's decision about where we're going to place our efforts, who we're going to prosecute, who we're not going to prosecute, is racism. And nobody's calling them on it.

A white leftist Mexican activist isn't the same in the media as the son of a farmer in Guerrero, they aren't worth the same. In the same imaginary of the Latin American Left exists a racism, a racism that corresponds to processes of colonialism internal to almost all countries in Latin America.

Even if I don't always behave as I should, this still doesn't explain why so many people have something against me. But you know how it is. A lot of people vent themselves by coming to the stadium to yell at me. I hope it's not racism. I tell myself that it's not racism; it's because I'm tough, and I repeat this to myself.

The system of patriarchy is a historic construct; it has a beginning; it will have an end. Its time seems to have nearly run its course—it no longer serves the needs of men or women and in its inextricable linkage to militarism, hierarchy, and racism it threatens the very existence of life on earth. What will come after, what kind of structure will be the foundation for alternate forms of social organization we cannot yet know. We are living in an age of unprecedented transformation. We are in the process of becoming.

Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.

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

I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves." Another "I was raised to believe that excellence is the deterrent to racism and sexism. And that's how I operate my life." And another "It does not matter who you are or where you came from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.

In the West or anywhere else, the treatment of people in an undignified way (structural and institutionalized racism against Latinos or African American citizens) as well as a dangerous dehumanization of some people (in Palestine, Iraq, Africa or Asia) are simply unacceptable.

Black writers, of whatever quality, who step outside the pale of what black writers are supposed to write about, or who black writers are supposed to be, are condemned to silences in black literary circles that are as total and as destructive as any imposed by racism.

Young people want to learn, they are thirsty for knowledge, they want to understand and remember. The main thing is to teach them where not to go. Oppression, not to go; dictatorship, not to go; racism and prejudice, absolutely not to go. This is a moral plan [for society].

I'll always remember the phrase of my husband: "Racism is never surprising, but it is always disappointing." Anytime I see it or I feel it, that quote comes back. This is something that has to be constantly talked about in order to be changed.

Racism and sexism are not "problems" or "topics." They are ways of defining reality and living our lives that most of us learned along with learning how to tie our shoes and how to drink from a cup.

Be true. Be beautiful. Be free. In the midst of segregation and racism Mamma raised us to be independent and free. We saw ourselves as citizens of the world, not of a block.

In Baltimore they can't do police work to save their lives. Now because of Freddie Gray they're not even getting out of the car and policing corners - they're on a job slowdown, basically. Right now if the police stopped being brutal, if we got police shooting under control, and the use of excessive force, if we have a meaningful societal response to all that stuff, and the racism that underlies it, the question still remains: what are they policing, and why?

The Belgians tend to downplay the cultural divide issue, and the far-right issue, but there's a staggering degree of casual racism in Belgium, much worse than in the UK.

I found that my wounds begin to heal when the voices of those endangered by silence are given power. The silence of hopelessness, of despair buried in the depths of poverty, violence, racism are more deadly than bullets. The gift of light, in our compassion, our listening, our works of love is the gift of life to ourselves.

I am disappointed that after all of the struggles that we have had in this country for such a long time, trying to get through and beyond racism and bigotry and discrimination - I think it is sad. It just tells us the kind of work that we have to do as - as America, as a nation.

Racism is the snobbery of the poor.

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.

I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.

Malcolm X finally became the person he was meant and raised to be. He fought against the forces of racism to return to that. Malcolm wanted to inspire other people to find their own strength.

Nothing better protects a human being against the stupidity of prejudice, racism, religious or political sectarianism, and exclusivist nationalism than this truth that invariably appears in great literature: that men and women of all nations and places are essentially equal, and only injustice sows among them discrimination, fear, and exploitation.

Speak out, educate, do not be intimidated by the apologists, and do not let extreme racism be mainstreamed. Hopefully there will come a time when we don't need to tell our kids that Halloween is no excuse for hate, and that blackface has no place in a civilized society.

Racism is a blight on the human conscience

Racism today is the ultimate evil in the world

All the many brands of suppression - racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, classism - are historical; they have not been always with us. It was not ever thus. And it's not going to be this way, come the revolution!

If political correctness has achieved one thing, it’s that it has made the Conservative party cloak their inherent racism behind more creative language

It is up to us to take care of this planet, it is our only home. To betray nature is to betray us. To save nature is to save us. Because whatever you're fighting for, racism or poverty. Feminism, gay rights or any type of equality. It won't matter in the least. Because if we don't all work together to save the environment, we will be equally extinct.

Racism and discrimination of any kind have no place in football.

In terms of the contemporary food system we see a lot of racism currently. Obviously we have a large supply of food. A lot of people don't examine why that is the case, but there are a number of nonwhite migrant workers being exploited every day.

Racism built me into a person that was set up to be self-destructive.

America is supposed to pride itself on freedom of religion, race, and class. It's something that is carried on from ignorance and territorialism. I don't know if it's a transcendental pre-colonial mentality but I don't see too many other races of people trippin' about who is coming in and coming out. I think it's primarily racism disguised as class wars.

Just as we reject racism, sexism, ageism, and heterosexism, we reject speciesism. The species of a sentient being is no more reason to deny the protection of this basic right than race, sex, age, or sexual orientation is a reason to deny membership in the human moral community to other humans.

The Nova Scotian black community always remembered Viola Desmond - they didn't lose track of her, ever. Her memory was very much alive there, but the rest of us didn't know anything about her. It's just so typical of Canadians that we know Rosa Parks, in that "bad country to the south of us" - they needed this lovely, courageous woman to sit down in the front of the bus - but we wouldn't know ours, because of course we "don't have racism in Canada."

Of course, intersectionality theory is a confused muddle. It fights racism and sexism by classifying everyone according to race and sex. It views race and gender privilege as the root of all evil, while ignoring the role played by dogmatic ideologies held by all genders. And it is unfalsifiable - to its adherents, criticism and rejection of the theory actually demonstrate its truth, by showing how deeply we all have internalized our oppression.