Racial Constructs Quotes

While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me. ~ Raquel Cepeda

Being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about. ~ Raquel Cepeda

The Anasazi did manage to construct in stone the largest and tallest buildings erected in North America until the Chicago steel girder skyscrapers of the 1880s. ~ Jared Diamond

Dream, because dreams are the material that constructs reality. ~ Javier Garcia Pulido

From a viable economy to the full funding of Headstart, from a clean environment to true equality for women, from a strong military to a commitment to racial brotherhood, from schools that are honored to streets free of excessive violence. ~ Paul Tsongas

Many white children in this city never set foot in a public school. They follow in the footsteps of their parents and grandparents, attending private schools from the moment they hit kindergarten. This private school pipeline contributes to the racial disparity of the public schools, the same way my alma mater does in Farmville. Richmonders, like many in Prince Edward and around the country, have effectively given up on public school education. And the abandonment of Richmond's public schools by white and middle-income parents creates a self-fulfilling prophecy of schools that continue to perform poorly. ~ Kristen Green

The issue of racism and racial prejudice is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the history of apartheid - many people have made the observation that it is very, very difficult to find anybody in South Africa who ever supported apartheid: because everybody was opposed to that; it was against our will and so on. ~ Thabo Mbeki

To proclaim 'America First' was to deny any need to fight fascism either at home or abroad. When American Nazis and white supremacists marched in Charlottesville in August 2017, Trump said that some of them were 'very fine people.' He defended the Confederate and Nazi cause of preserving monuments to the Confederacy. Such monuments in the American South were raised in the 1920s and 1930s, at a time when fascism in the United States was a real possibility; they memorialized the racial purification of Southern cities that was contemporary with the rise of fascism in Europe. Contemporary observers had no difficulty seeing the connection. Will Rogers, the great American entertainer and social commentator of his time, saw Adolf Hitler in 1933 as a familiar figure: 'Papers all state that Hitler is trying to copy Mussolini. Looks to me it's the KKK he's copying.' The great American social thinker and historian W.E.B. Du Bois could see how the temptations of fascism worked together with American myths of the past. He rightly feared that American whites would prefer a story about enmity with blacks to a reforming state that would improve prospects for all Americans. Whites distracted by racism could become, as he wrote in 1935, 'the instrument by which democracy in the nation was done to death, race provincialism deified, and the world delivered to plutocracy,' what we call oligarchy. ~ Timothy Snyder

There is another, more sinister consequence of affirmative action: the carefully engineered appearance of great racial progress strengthens the "colorblind" public consensus that personal and cultural traits, not structural arrangements, are largely responsible for the fact that the majority of young black men in urban areas across the United States are currently under the control of the criminal justice system or branded as felons for life. In ~ Michelle Alexander

People often view racism as social division based on race; that is, racism occurs when people align and separate themselves based on their affinity for people of the same race and their hostility toward people of other races. A popular way to put this has been to define racism as "prejudice plus power," that is, it is having the personal power to act on one's feelings about racial difference. This understanding reduces racism to the level of affect and interpersonal relationships: racism occurs because of how we as individuals feel about other ethnic groups; reconciliation occurs when we eliminate our negative feelings about other racial groups and establish relationships across race.

But racism is not about our feelings. Nor is it about the attitudes, intentions, or behavior of individuals. Racism is an interlocking system of oppression that is designed to promote and maintain White supremacy, the notion that White people - including their bodies, aesthetics, beliefs, values, customs, and culture - are inherently superior to all other races and therefore should wield dominion over the rest of creation, including other people groups, the animal kingdom, and the earth itself. ~ Chanequa Walker-Barnes

Black women who date or marry white men find that they cannot endure the harassment and persecution by black and white people. In some instances black men who are themselves involved in inter-racial relationships act contemptuously towards black women who exercise the same freedom of choice. They see their own behavior as acceptable because they view white women as victims, while they see white men as oppressors. So in their eyes a black woman involved with a white man is allying herself with a racist oppressor. But their tendency to see white women as innocent, as non-racist is yet another reflection of their acceptance of sexist idealization of woman. For white women have historically shown themselves to be as capable of being racist oppressors as white men. ~ Bell Hooks

The enormous success of 2009's 'The Blind Side,' in which Sandra Bullock makes a black teenager one of the family, demonstrates that America isn't post-racial. It is thoroughly mired in race - the myths that surround it, the guilt it inspires, the discomfort it causes, the struggle to transcend it. ~ Wesley Morris

I believe inter -racial marriages show the world that the color of a person's skin is of no consequence. The more such marriages there are, the more people will come into direct contact with such couples. This benefits peace in the world where so much conflict and hatred is based on racial and religious differences ~ Robert S. Jepson, Jr.

One strong idea being put forth these days (...) is that women should above all be given choice. (...) But this "right to choose" whether or not we provide for ourselves has contributed mightily to the female achievement gap. Because they have the social option to stay home, women can - and often do - back off from assuming responsibility for themselves. (...) There is something wrong with this. (...) We want so desperately to believe that we do not have to be responsible for our own welfare. ~ Colette Dowling

I'm interested in machines that make you aware of the process of seeing and aware of what you do when you construct the world by looking. This is interesting in itself, but more as a broad-based metaphor for how we understand the world. ~ William Kentridge

The Audacity of Despair
"You can stand your ground if you're white, and you can use a gun to do it. But if you stand your ground with your fists and you're black, you're dead.

"In the state of Florida, the season on African-Americans now runs year round. Come one, come all. And bring a handgun. The legislators are fine with this blood on their hands. The governor, too. One man accosted another and when it became a fist fight, one man - and one man only - had a firearm. The rest is racial rationalization and dishonorable commentary.

"If I were a person of color in Florida, I would pick up a brick and start walking toward that courthouse in Sanford. Those that do not, those that hold the pain and betrayal inside and somehow manage to resist violence - these citizens are testament to a stoic tolerance that is more than the rest of us deserve. I confess, their patience and patriotism is well beyond my own.

"Behold, the lewd, pornographic embrace of two great American pathologies: Race and guns, both of which have conspired not only to take the life of a teenager, but to make that killing entirely permissible. I can't look an African-American parent in the eye for thinking about what they must tell their sons about what can happen to them on the streets of their country. Tonight, anyone who truly understands what justice is and what it requires of a society is ashamed to call himself an American. ~ David Simon

Character and emotionality don't always have to be relegated to quieter, more simple constructs. ~ Kathryn Bigelow

The idea of reappropriation isn't a new one. The process of turning negative words, symbols, or ideas into positive parts of our own identity – was used for social justice movements long before hipsters thought that being ironic was cool. Whether it is repurposing a racial epithet or taking on a stereotype for sociopolitical empowerment, it's an important process that has been around for thousands of years and continues to change society today. ~ Simon S. Tam

Somehow, though, neither her clothes nor her features seemed to matter - they were the adornments of a painting or a picture, not the real thing. What made her so captivating was something else, not so easily named: the way she moved, the glance of her eyes, the manner and sound and form. All I wanted to do was sit and gape. If I'd let myself fall into her eyes, I think an army of constructs could have battered down the door and I wouldn't have noticed. ~ Benedict Jacka

Judaism is not a religion. At best, it is a racial credo, designed to maintain racial cohesion, in this case the Khazar bloodlines. ~ Henry Makow

Even what are considered the accomplishments of diversity are admissions of its failure. All across America, public organizations such as fire departments and police forces congratulate themselves when they manage to hire more than a token number of blacks or Hispanics. They promise that this will greatly improve service.
And yet, is this not an admission of how difficult the multi-racial enterprise really is? If all across America it has been shown that whites cannot provide effective police protection for blacks or Hispanics, it only proves that diversity is an insoluble problem. If blacks want black officers and Hispanics want Hispanic officers, they are certainly not expressing support for diversity. A mixed-race force - touted as an example of the benefits of diversity - becomes necessary only because of the tensions that arise between officers of one race and citizens of another. The diversity we celebrate is necessary only because of the intractable problems of diversity.
Likewise, if Hispanic judges and prosecutors must be recruited for the justice system, does this mean whites cannot dispense dispassionate justice? If non-white teachers are necessary role models for non-white children, does this mean inspiration cannot cross racial lines? If newspapers must hire non-white reporters in order to satisfy non-white readers, does this mean whites cannot write acceptable news for non-whites? If blacks demand black newscasters and weathermen on television, does it ~ Jared Taylor

We walk the brink of racial suicide because we were smart enough to make atomic bombs and stupid enough to use them. ~ David Zindell

No mathematician of equal stature has risen from our generation ... Hilbert was singularly free from national and racial prejudices; in all public questions, be they political, social or spiritual, he stood forever on the side of freedom. ~ Hermann Weyl

This system of control depends far more on racial indifference (defined as a lack of compassion and caring about race and racial groups) than racial hostility - a feature it actually shares with its predecessors. All ~ Michelle Alexander

The new vantage from which Christian theology as a discourse on Christian identity must operate in the modern world, then, is the Christological horizon of Mary-Israel. To be Christian is to enter into this horizon. But where is the horizon concretely displayed, where is it made visible if not in despised dark (and especially dark female) flesh? Is this not the flesh of homo sacer . . .the flesh that is impoverished, "despised and rejected of men," flesh that in shame we "hide our faces from" (cf. Isa. 53:3)?
But if this is the case, it follows that the poverty of dark flesh is where one finds the wealthy God. . . In (Christ"s) taking on the form of the slave, the from of despised dark (female) flesh there is the diclsoure (sic) of divinity, a disclosure that undoes the social arrangement of the colonial-racial tyranny (tynannos,), as the seventh-century theologian Maximus the Confessor called it, that is the darker side of modernity ~ J. Kameron Carter

The problem is there are people in this country - maybe 10%, I don't know what the number, maybe 20% on a bad day - who want this President to have an asterisk next to his name in the history books, that he really wasn't President ... They can't stand the idea that he is President, and a piece of it is racism. Not that somebody in one racial group doesn't like somebody in another racial group. So what? It is the sense that the white race must rule. That's what racism is. And they can't stand the idea that a man who is not white is President. ~ Chris Matthews

Multiple species, with multiple viewpoints and racial philosophies, simply cannot hold power together for long. The dominant voice must certainly be wise enough to adopt ideas and methods from its allies and member peoples. But there must be a dominant voice, or there is only chaos. In this part of the galaxy, that voice is the Empire.
-Thrawn ~ Timothy Zahn

Where is outrage from the National Rifle Association? Where's the damned NRA? The NRA claims to believe the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States grants all of our citizens the right to survive and protect their families with any gun they want. I guess that's only true when those citizens are Caucasian! Does the Second Amendment apply if you're a black man driving through a white neighborhood? ~ Mark M. Bello

I believe that the flag of the Confederate States of America is a painful symbol and reminder of racial injustice and slavery which (Abraham) Lincoln denounced from here over 150 years ago ~ Howard Dean

According to Bartholomew, an important goal of St. Louis zoning was to prevent movement into 'finer residential districts . . . by colored people.' He noted that without a previous zoning law, such neighborhoods have become run-down, 'where values have depreciated, homes are either vacant or occupied by color people.' The survey Bartholomew supervised before drafting the zoning ordinance listed the race of each building's occupants. Bartholomew attempted to estimate where African Americans might encroach so the commission could respond with restrictions to control their spread.

The St. Louis zoning ordinance was eventually adopted in 1919, two years after the Supreme Court's Buchanan ruling banned racial assignments; with no reference to race, the ordinance pretended to be in compliance. Guided by Bartholomew's survey, it designated land for future industrial development if it was in or adjacent to neighborhoods with substantial African American populations.

Once such rules were in force, plan commission meetings were consumed with requests for variances. Race was frequently a factor. For example, on meeting in 1919 debated a proposal to reclassify a single-family property from first-residential to commercial because the area to the south had been 'invaded by negroes.' Bartholomew persuaded the commission members to deny the variance because, he said, keeping the first-residential designation would preserve homes in the area as unaffordable to African Am ~ Richard Rothstein

For some of us it seems like yesterday when Ike was in the White House, the U.S. Senate censured Joe McCarthy, and the Supreme Court unanimously ruled that racial segregation in public school was unconstitutional. ~ Malcolm Forbes

Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era's racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

our democracy is controlled by a wealthy elite. Politicians who work for the wealthy need the police to protect them from the people. And so the whole chain of command protects the killer cop. The ruling class give carte blanche to law enforcement, who in turn press down on those most stranded by the neoliberal state, the poor-- and more so, the Black poor."
-- Nicolas Powers ~ Maya Schenwar

Another kind of transcendence myth has been dramatization of human life in terms of conflict and vindication. This focuses upon the situation of oppression and the struggle for liberation. It is a short-circuited transcendence when the struggle against oppression becomes an end in itself, the focal point of all meaning. There is an inherent contradiction in the idea that those devoted to a cause have found their whole meaning in the struggle, so that the desired victory becomes implicitly an undesirable meaninglessness. Such a truncated vision is one of the pitfalls of theologies of the oppressed. Sometimes black theology, for example that of James Cone, resounds with a cry for vengeance and is fiercely biblical and patriarchal. It transcends religion as a crutch (the separation and return of much old-fashioned Negro spirituality) but tends to settle for being religion as a gun. Tailored to fit only the situation of racial oppression, it inspires a will to vindication but leaves unexplored other dimensions of liberation. It does not get beyond the sexist models internalized by the self and controlling society - models that are at the root of racism and that perpetuate it. The Black God and the Black Messiah apparently are merely the same patriarchs after a pigmentation operation - their behavior unaltered. ~ Mary Daly

He crashed a dozen Cadillacs in one year and played the Apollo. With racial hatred burning in the headlines, the audience danced in the seats to a white boy from the bottomland, backed by pickers who talked like Ernest Tubb. "James Brown kissed me on my cheek," he says. "Top that. ~ Rick Bragg