Racial Quotes

I'm doing stuff on Kaballah and Scientology and a little bit more racial stuff, for good measure. ~ Sarah Silverman

There were moments of racial unity. Lawrence Goodwyn found in east Texas an unusual coalition of black and white public officials: it had begun during Reconstruction and continued into the Populist period. The state government was in the control of white Democrats, but in Grimes County, blacks won local offices and sent legislators to the state capital. The district clerk was a black man; there were black deputy sheriffs and a black school principal. A night-riding White Man's Union used intimidation and murder to split the coalition, but Goodwyn points to "the long years of interracial cooperation in Grimes County" and wonders about missed opportunities. ~ Howard Zinn

From personal experience, Kenzo knew about the state of racial equality in America. It was sound in theory, but not in practice. It was a glorious dream, but just a dream. It would never work. It had never worked
not anywhere, not anytime in history
and the US was the only country foolish and hypocritical enough to try. ~ Don Lee

I wanted a racially just society. I wanted to end wars. I wanted to end white supremacy. I wanted to create a world that was based on egalitarianism, sharing, racial justice. ~ Bill Ayers

I mean, there needs to be a wholesale effort against racial profiling, which is illiterate children. ~ George W. Bush

...we should distinguish carefully between women's and feminist institutions, remain aware of the costs of racial exclusiveness, and avoid romanticizing the past. ~ Estelle B. Freedman

Rosa Parks turned to me sweetly and asked, 'Now, Bryan, tell me who you are and what you're doing.' I looked at Ms. Carr to see if I had permission to speak, and she smiled and nodded at me. I then gave Ms. Parks my rap. 'Yes, ma'am. Well, I have a law project called the Equal Justice Initiative, and we're trying to help people on death row. We're trying to stop the death penalty, actually. We're trying to do something about prison conditions and excessive punishment. We want to free people who've been wrongly convicted. We want to end unfair sentences in criminal cases and stop racial bias in criminal justice...Ms. Parks leaned back smiling. 'Ooooh, honey, all that's going to make you tired, tired, tired.' We all laughed. I looked down, a little embarrassed. Then Ms. Carr leaned forward and put her finger in my face and talked o me just like my grandmother used to talk to me. She said, 'That's why you've got to be brave, brave, brave.' All three women nodded in silent agreement and for just a little while, they made me feel like a young prince. ~ Bryan Stevenson

When we fail to open the closed-minded consumers of racist ideas, we blame their closed-mindedness instead of our foolish decision to waste time reviving closed minds from the dead. When our vicious attacks on open-minded consumers of racist ideas fail to transform them, we blame their hate rather than our impatient and alienating hate of them. When people fail to consume our convoluted antiracist ideas, we blame their stupidity rather than our stupid lack of clarity. When we transform people and do not show them an avenue of support, we blame their lack of commitment rather than our lack of guidance. When the politician we supported does not change racist policy, we blame the intractability of racism rather than our support of the wrong politician. When we fail to gain support for a protest, we blame the fearful rather than our alienating presentation. When the protest fails, we blame racist power rather than our flawed protest. When our policy does not produce racial equity, we blame the people for not taking advantage of the new opportunity, not our flawed policy solution. The failure doctrine avoids the mirror of self-blame. The failure doctrine begets failure. The failure doctrine begets racism. ~ Ibram X. Kendi

We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today. ~ Sandra Day O'Connor

For far too long, there has been a racial divide that has plagued our country. The egregious acts of discrimination and prejudices will no longer be tolerated. ~ Asa Don Brown

For Trump diehards in a time of danger and disjunction, the media's job was not to challenge, but to affirm. So when demonstrators poured not the streets to protest police killings of Blacks, the media was supposed to confirm for them that those chaos makers were actually supporting the killing of cops, that somehow the Movement for Black Lives was a Black version of the Ku Klux Klan. And some pundits - Hannity, the same O'Reilly who confronted Trump - dutifully filled this role. In their telling, 'Black Lives Matter' was not a call to end state violence against Blacks-and in that way, to end state violence against all-it was evidence of hatred against whites, a premonition of racial apocalypse. ~ Jeff Chang

Indeed, a consequence of color-blind racial ideology is that, because it implies that race is a bad thing, it also implies that those who identify as raced - that is, people of color - are thus morally inferior to those who do not - that is, White people. Thus it reinforces the supremacy of whiteness even as it renders whiteness invisible. ~ Chanequa Walker-Barnes

The saddest part of the human race is we're obsessed with this idea of 'us and them,' which is really a no-win situation, whether it's racial, cultural, religious or political. ~ Dave Matthews

The bottom line is the driver was twenty to twenty-five years older than the robbery suspect. Both husband and wife were college- educated, middle-class American citizens, like you and me."
"Except that they were black, and we are not," Jennifer states the obvious. ~ Mark M. Bello

Neo-Spenglerians who are attuned to the racial view of history (call them "racists" for convenience) hold that the "final" phase of a Culture - the imperialistic stage - is final only because the cultural organism destroys its body and kills its soul by this process. Obviously, if we are to draw analogies between cultures and organisms we must agree that the soul of the organism dies only because of the death of the body. The soul can sicken - the soul of the West is now diseased and perhaps mortally ill - but it cannot die unless the organism itself dies. And this, point out the racists, is precisely what has happened to all previous cultures; death of the organism being the natural result of the suicidal process of imperialism. ~ Willis Carto

We see race as what people of color have (or are.) If people of color are not present, race is not present. Further, if people of color are not present, not only is race absent, so is that terrible thing: racism. Ironically, this positions racism as something people of color have and bring to whites, rather than a system which whites control and impose on people of color. ~ Robin DiAngelo

True Islam taught me that it takes all of the religious, political, economic, psychological, and racial ingredients, or characteristics, to make the Human Family and the Human Society complete. ~ Malcolm X

The Myth is the Myth of the Blood, which, under the sign of the Swastika, released the World Revolution. It is the Awakening of the Soul of the Race, which, after a period of long slumber, victoriously put an End to Racial Chaos. ~ Alfred Rosenberg

This pursuit of Theo was not borne out of hatred for him as a man or a Jew. All of that was just an excuse - an excuse for lawless men to take what belonged to others. It seemed strange that those who served the Hitlers and the Himmlers and the Gorings believed constant lies. "The Jew is a misfortune." It was those little men in the service of greed who were the most violent, the most dedicated to the brutality of the racial policies. They murdered and terrorized for one reason only: because they could. They were the law of the lawlessness; the power of evil was their creed and their joy and their god! ~ Bodie Thoene

I believe that there is a moral and constitutional equivalence between laws designed to subjugate a race and those that distribute benefits on the basis of race in order to foster some current notion of equality ... In my mind, government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice. ~ Clarence Thomas

The exploitation of women, mass hunger, disregard for freedom of conscience and for freedom of speech, widespread and racial discrimination all these evils are far too prevalent to be overlooked. ~ Rene Cassin

Over and above the political, economic, sociological, and international implications of racial prejudices, their major significance is that they place unnecessary burdens upon human beings. ~ Kenneth Clark

Exposing their own humility and vulnerability is one of the most difficult challenges for white antiracist, even after achieving an autonomous white racial identity. ~ Eileen O'Brien

South Africa is such a fraught place to live. The anxiety about crime, the crunching on racial eggshells, the juxtaposition of First World materialism with Third World squalor. ~ Rory Carroll

But in a few years, as part of their effort to push Jews out of German public life, the Nazis would attempt to puah them out of the German church too. That these "non-Aryans" had publicly converted to the Christian faith meant nothing, since the lens through which the Nazis saw the world was purely racial. One's genetic makeup and ancestral bloodline were all that mattered; one's most deeply held beliefs counted for nothing. ~ Eric Metaxas

In any case, it is difficult not to think that if Serena lost context by abandoning all rules of civility, it could be because her body, trapped in a racial imaginary, trapped in disbelief - code for being black in America - is being governed not by the tennis match she is participating in but by a collapsed relationship that had promised to play by the rules. Perhaps this is how racism feels no matter the context - randomly the rules everyone else gets to play by no longer apply to you, and to call this out by calling out "I swear to God!" is to be called insane, crass, crazy. Bad sportsmanship. Two ~ Claudia Rankine

If race disappears as a category of official division, as it has in most of the world, this will facilitate the emergence of a plural racial order where the groups exist in practice but are not official recognized - and anyone trying to address racial division is likely to be chided for racializing the population. ~ Eduardo Bonilla-Silva

Upon reflection, it is relatively easy to understand how Americans come to deny the evils of mass incarceration. Denial is facilitated by persistent racial segregation in housing and schools, by political demagoguery, by racialized media imagery, and by the ease of changing one's perception of reality simply by changing television channels. There is little reason to doubt the prevailing "common sense" that black and brown men have been locked up en masse merely in response to crime rates when one's sources of information are mainstream media outlets. ~ Michelle Alexander

The time is long overdue to stop looking for progress through racial or ethnic leaders. Such leaders have too many incentives to promote polarizing attitudes and actions that are counterproductive for minorities and disastrous for the country. ~ Thomas Sowell

Some whites, who had never really understood, were offended by this sudden death of their role as the "good white leading the poor black out of the jungle." Many of these were among the saddest people of our time, good-hearted whites who had dedicated themselves to helping black people become imitation whites, to "bringing them up to our level," without ever realizing what a deep insult this attitude can be. ~ John Howard Griffin

I was not in a country where my ancestors had been enslaved. I was not stared at when I walked through different neighborhoods either in the day or the evening, no waitress gave me poor service, no one made any snide remarks about my body, and I never heard a racial slur. In short, I was free. ~ Morgan Jerkins

Segregation in the American South was bankrolled by the wealthy eugenicist from the Northeast, Wickliffe Draper. ~ A.E. Samaan

Our only chance at dismantling racial injustice is being more curious about its origins than we are worried about our comfort. ~ Austin Channing Brown

I started to see the bigger picture of things: Islam was not relegated to the tiny, sometimes frustrating and seemingly arbitrary details of practice, but rather entered the larger picture of spirituality and worship that contextualized my womanhood. In order to be able to derive these logical conclusions about my religion, I had to go back to the basics and understand the very fundamental principles upon which it was founded: justice, social equality, racial equality, financial equality, and, possibly most important of all, gender equality. Thus began my lifelong love affair with Islamic feminism. ~ Amani Al-Khatahtbeh

As a first-generation "Asian American woman," for one thing, I knew there was no such thing as an "Asian American woman." Within this homogenizing labeling of an exotica, I knew there were entire racial/national/cultural/sexual-preferenced groups, many of whom find each other as alien as mainstream America apparently finds me. ~ Shirley Geok-lin Lim

Jesus crossed national, racial, and economic barriers to spread his Good News. Jesus' message of faith and forgiveness is for the whole world - not just our church, neighborhood, or nation. We must reach out beyond our own people and needs to fulfill the worldwide vision of Jesus Christ so that people everywhere may hear this great message and be saved from sin and death. ~ Anonymous

I travel to Chicago a lot. And I've followed Obama through his Senate race and beyond. I found him to be an exceptional candidate who was able to transcend ethnic and racial lines. ~ Sal Albanese

No one, and the liberal cognoscenti least of all, wants to look at why, after decades of throwing money at a rotting educational establishment and years of racial preferences black students are worse off than ever. ~ Wesley Pruden

Embracing a certain quotient of racial bias and discrimination against the poor is an inexorable aspect of supporting capital punishment. This is an immoral condition that makes rejecting the death penalty on moral grounds not only defensible but necessary for those who refuse to accept unequal or unjust administration of punishment. ~ Bryan Stevenson

I contend that the continued racial classification of Homo sapiens represents an outmoded approach to the general problem of differentiation within a species. In other words, I reject a racial classification of humans for the same reasons that I prefer not to divide into subspecies the prodigiously variable West Indian land snails that form the subject of my own research. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

So, why the traffic stop when the officer admits that the driver did nothing wrong? To this impartial observer, those facts suggest Mr. Hayes was pulled over for driving while black and the shooting was the worst result of a bad stop. ~ Mark M. Bello

Long before many of us were even conscious of our own degradation, Marcus Garvey fought for African national and racial equality. ~ Kwame Nkrumah

You think ghosts and witches and vampires and ghosts and two-headed monsters are bad. Why? Do you know what that is, David? It's prejudice. Racial prejudice! ~ Anthony Horowitz

Reichenbach, I believe, made it a precondition for doing scientific epistemology that the very notion of 'Jewish science' be philosophically inadmissible. The Nazi racial laws were not only a crime against humanity, they were a crime against philosophical principle. ~ Ronald N. Giere

People in the Middle East may consider the U.S. an evil hegemony that has tainted their culture, but when I look at the growth of racial and ethnic tolerance and understanding in my generation in the U.S., and see those sentiments make it around the world, it makes me feel proud. ~ Aloe Blacc

What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!" ~ Yoko Ono

Fear of black independence and self-determination took a Freudian form: rape hysteria. In one town after another, racial violence was sparked by rumors that a Negro had harmed a white woman. This happened in Washington; Omaha, Neb.; Kansas City, Kan.; Knoxville, Tenn.; Longview, Tex.; and Rosewood, Fla. ~ Anonymous

Regimes of racial segregation were not disestablished because of the work of leaders and presidents and legislators, but rather because of the fact that ordinary people adopted a critical stance in the way in which they perceived their relationship to reality. ~ Angela Y. Davis

Marcus tries to stay calm for the sake of his family.
"I'm not asking. Step out of the damned car!" The officer is becoming unglued.
"I'm getting out, damn you, but, here, let me just show you my - "
"Don't reach. Stop!"
"I'm getting what you asked for, just going to show you my - "
"Put your hands where I can see them!" The officer snarls.
"Jesus H. Christ, officer. I'm not - "
Thunderous shots ring out, and Marcus slumps away from the dash, back toward the driver's seat. ~ Mark M. Bello

This is the real work of woman of color feminism: to resist acquiescence to fatality and guilt, to become warriors of conscience and action who resist death in all its myriad manifestations: poverty, cultural assimilation, child abuse, motherless mothering, gentrification, mental illness, welfare cuts, the prison system, racial profiling, immigrant and queer bashing, invasion and imperialism at home and at war.

To fight any kind of war, Kahente Horn-Miller writes. "The Biggest single requirement is fighting spirit." I thought much of this as I read Colonize This! since this collection appears in print at a time of escalating world-wide war--In Colombia, Afghanistan, Palestine. But is there ever a time of no-war for women of color? Is there ever a time when our home (our body, our land of origin) is not subject to violent occupation, violent invasion? If I retain any image to hold the heart-intention of this book, it is found in what Horn-Miller calls the necessity of the war dance. This book is one rite of passage, one ceremony of preparedness on the road to consciousness, on the "the war path of greater empowerment. ~ Bushra Rehman

I was on duty when our submarine went into port in Nassau and tied up at the Prince George Wharf, and I was the officer who accepted an invitation from the governor-general of the Bahamas for our officers and crewmen to attend an official ball to honor the U.S. Navy. There was a more private comment that a number of young ladies would be present with their chaperones. All of us were pleased and excited, and Captain Andrews responded affirmatively. We received a notice the next day that, of course, the nonwhite crewmen would not be included. When I brought this message to the captain, he had the crew assemble in the mess hall and asked for their guidance in drafting a response. After multiple expletives were censored from the message, we unanimously declined to participate. The decision by the crew of the K-1 was an indication of how equal racial treatment had been accepted - and relished. I was very proud of my ship. On leave ~ Jimmy Carter

All my life I've been involved with racial politics. I was a Freedom Rider in the South. I was the author of books on gang violence, I was a community organizer in Newark, New Jersey, and when I spoke to the Black Caucus, congressional and state, I realized they were going all the way for Hillary [Clinton] and so was the Latino caucus in Sacramento and I asked myself this question: "Do I really want to cast my vote against these people who have been central to my life and to the soul of the country?" And so I went with them. Period. ~ Tom Hayden

There is no racial or ethnic involvement in Thanksgiving, and people who may be very distant from the Christian system can see the beauty and the positive spirit that comes from the holiday. ~ John Clayton

The colonization of the Southern economy by capitalists from the North gave lynching its most vigorous impulse. If Black people, by means of terror and violence, could remain the most brutally exploited group within the swelling ranks of the working class, the capitalists could enjoy a double advantage. Extra profits would result from the superexploitation of Black labor, and white workers' hostilities toward their employers would be defused. White workers who assented to lynching necessarily assumed a posture of racial solidarity with the white men who were really their oppressors. This was a critical moment in the popularization of racist ideology. ~ Angela Y. Davis

The historian's distortion is more than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending interest, where any chosen emphasis supports some kind of interest, whether economic or political or racial, or national or sexual. ~ Howard Zinn

Susannah Heschel's The Aryan Jesus is a brilliant and erudite investigation of the convergence between major trends in German Protestantism and Nazi racial anti-Semitism. By concentrating on the history of the Institute for the Study and Eradication of Jewish Influence on German Religious Life, Heschel describes in forceful detail the Nazification of all aspects of Protestant theology, including the Aryanization of Jesus himself. This is a highly original and important contribution to our understanding of the Third Reich. ~ Saul Friedlander

The temptation is to insist that black men 'choose' to be criminals; the system does not make them criminals, at least not in the way that slavery made blacks slaves or Jim Crow made them second-class citizens. The myth of choice here is seductive, but it should be resisted. African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct. In fact, studies suggest that white professionals may be the most likely of any group to have engaged in illegal drug activity in their lifetime, yet they are the least likely to be made criminals. The prevalence of illegal drug activity among all racial and ethnic groups creates a situation in which, due to limited law enforcement resources and political constraints, some people are made criminals while others are not. Black people have been made criminals by the War on Drugs to a degree that dwarfs its effect on other racial and ethnic groups, especially whites. And the process of making them criminals has produced racial stigma. ~ Michelle Alexander

Toni Morrison uses the term race talk to capture 'the explicit insertion into everyday life of racial signs and symbols that have no meaning other than positioning African Americans into the lowest level of the racial hierarchy.' Casual race talk is a key component of white racial framing because it accomplishes the interconnected goals of elevating whites while demeaning people of color; race talk always implies a racial 'us' and 'them'. ~ Robin DiAngelo

The '60s were a very turbulent time for colored people. Being away at war was a chance for them to escape the racial bullshit for a while. It was a shame it came down to that kind of choice.
Don't get me wrong. There were plenty of guys, who tried to bring that racial crap over there with them. However, when the shit hits the fan, you don't give a damn about who's standing next to you, saving your ass. You certainly don't care what color his skin is or what language he speaks. All that matters to you is that he is an American G.I. Government Issued, baby! ~ Jason Medina

As he saw it, the central issue had shifted from the purely racial to the economic. King likened the situation to a lifelong prisoner who is released from jail after the warden discovers that the man was falsely accused all along. "Go ahead, you're free now," the jailer says. But the prisoner has no job skills, no prospects, and the jailer doesn't think to give him money for the bus fare into town. ~ Hampton Sides

White Evangelicals neither obscure nor ignore their religious convictions when they declare their allegiance to the 45th president. In fact, their actions indicate a preeminent concern with upholding orthodoxy. In the case of President Trump, observers should focus on discerning the orthodoxy of an actor who is perceived as religiously legitimate primarily because he engages in actions in support of religiously defined group interests rather than as a result of statements of belief or piety of behavior. While fear, nostalgia, racial resentment, and white nationalism have all been analytical pieces of the Trump support puzzle scholars have been weaving together since November 2016, a critical aspect of Trump support is to assert, rather than deny, that he is indeed unexpectedly religiously orthodox in the conduct of his presidency ~ Gerardo Marti

Many of the racial problems in America are caused by the fact that people are innately tribal, and politicians know how to exploit that biological fact. ~ Jim Goad

Immigration today is a racial issue. It is one which sees masses of non-whites from around the globe immigrating to white countries. ~ Arthur Kemp

Only if a Chinaman presents proof of affiliation with the West, has Western patrons vouch for him, and writes in 'pure' English, may he present his 'submission' to Western publishers. ~ Thorsten J. Pattberg

Race theorists, who are as old as imperialism itself, want to achieve racial purity in peoples whose interbreeding, as a result of the expansion of world economy, is so far advanced that racial purity can have meaning only to a numbskull. ~ Wilhelm Reich

The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rah speaks prophetically. That is, if we don't learn diversity and racial harmony in our own country, how can we go into the world? To aspiring missionaries he writes, "If you are a white Christian wanting to be a missionary in this day and age, and you have never had a nonwhite mentor, then you will not be a missionary. You will be a colonialist. Instead of taking the gospel message into the world, you will take an Americanized version of the gospel."7 ~ Paul Borthwick

If dominating and destructive relations to the earth are interrelated with gender, class, and racial domination, then a healed relation to the earth cannot come about simply through technological 'fixes'. It demands a social reordering to bring about just and loving interrelationship between men and women, between races and nations, between groups presently stratified into social classes, manifest in great disparities of access to the means of life. In short, it demands that we must speak of eco-justice, and not simply of domination of the earth as though that happened unrelated to social domination. ~ Rosemary Radford Ruether

In 1985, in Batson v. Kentucky, the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits prosecutors from discriminating on the basis of race when selecting juries, a ruling hailed as an important safeguard against all-white juries locking up African Americans based on racial biases and stereotypes. ~ Michelle Alexander

All physical and economic tests that may be devised are worthless if the immigrant, through racial or other inherently antipathetic conditions, cannot be more or less readily assimilated ... ~ Boies Penrose

Make government the herder of the flock, and the herder will cull the undesirable sheep. ~ A.E. Samaan

Strengthened by the experiences of almost two decades in the various capitals, the Nazis were confident that their best "propaganda" would be their racial policy itself, from which, despite many other compromises and broken promises, they had never swerved for expediency's sake. ~ Hannah Arendt

As a young man in South Africa at the beginning of the twentieth century, Gandhi developed satyagraha, a mode of political activism based upon moral persuasion, while mobilizing South Africa's small Indian minority against racial discrimination. ~ Pankaj Mishra

There is simply nothing so important to a people and its government as how many of them there are, whether their number is growing or declining, how they are distributed as between different ages, sexes, and different social classes and racial and ethnic groups, and again, which way these numbers are moving. ~ Daniel Patrick Moynihan

As racial, economic and national groups, they take for themselves, whatever their power can command. ~ Reinhold Niebuhr

I noticed that among this class of colored men the word "nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow," and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men. ~ James Weldon Johnson

We have a history of gender and racial bias on our court that continues to undermine the system. Excluding individuals based on race is antagonistic to the pursuit of justice. ~ Anita Hill

Not having a group consciousness, whites often respond defensively when grouped with other whites, resenting what they see as unfair generalizations. Individualism prevents us from seeing ourselves as responsible for or accountable to other whites as members of a shared racial group that collectively benefits from racial inequality. ~ Robin DiAngelo

I know that it's hard to believe that the people you look to for safety and security are the same people who are causing us so much harm. But I'm not lying and I'm not delusional. I am scared and I am hurting and we are dying. And I really, really need you to believe me. ~ Ijeoma Oluo

At the heart of racism stands Satan, not man. No one is more pleased by the racial tension in the world than God's ultimate enemy. I'm sure he marvels at how shallow we humans tend to be, by hating one another simply because of skin color! If you are a child of the Most High God and you are fighting in this war of division and hatred (even if only in thought), you are fighting for the enemy.

If this is you, you need to repent of this sin and start seeing others the way God sees them, as made in His image. If not, Satan will keep stirring your mind with thoughts that will not only further stoke the burning hatred of racism deep within you, it will put even more distance between you and the One who saw your unformed body before the foundations of the world, and knit you together in your mother's womb. ~ Patrick Higgins

< ... > many national leaders including Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, John Adams, John Jay, Gouverneur Morris, and Rufus King saw American slavery as an immense problem, a curse, a blight, or a national disease. If the degree of their revulsion varied, they agreed that the nation would be much safer, purer, happier, and better off without the racial slavery that they had inherited from previous generations and, some of them would emphasize, from England. Most of them also believed that America would be an infinitely better and less complicated place without the African American population, which most white leaders associated with all the defects, mistakes, sins, shortcomings, and animality of an otherwise almost perfect nation. ~ David Brion Davis

In the future, we've forgotten it. It's disappointing to find out that the past is the present is the future. Nobody wants that. And yet, that's what it is. Maybe it's a kind of surrealist move, to use language like "post-racial" - thinking that if you create the language for it, it will happen. I wish it worked that way. But that's not our reality. ~ Claudia Rankine

A racial community provides not only a sense of identity, that luxury of looking into another's face and seeing yourself reflected back, but a sense of security and support. ~ Wentworth Miller

It would be difficult, in this day and age, to fund art that made racial slurs. ~ Jane Alexander

Ruth is so loyal and gentle-hearted, we cannot help loving her, as she stands with the reapers amid the waving corn. Her beautiful, unselfish spirit shines out like a bright star in the night of a dark and cruel age. Love like Ruth's, love which can rise above conflicting creeds and deep-seated racial prejudices, is hard to find in all the world. ~ Helen Keller

Contrary to the claims of the supporters of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the sponsors of H.Res. 676, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not improve race relations or enhance freedom. Instead, the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty. ~ Ron Paul

Being bi-racial and being young along with being American and Canadian [allows me to] try and cover all the bases and expand my fan base to a level that has yet to be seen. ~ Drake

Every year, on the anniversary of 9/11, and in various places around the United States, I see the words 'Never Forget.' I understand that sentiment. I completely agree with honoring those who lost their lives. We must never forget them, and we must always be vigilant. But there is another side to this, too. It means we never forget to see my people as a potential threat. We haven't stopped racially profiling... these feelings of loss and fear and anger and tragedy affect all of us, regardless of the colour of our skin. ~ Tan France

Liberalism is the ideology at the center of conservative arguments against affirmative action and equal opportunity. By proposing that, all things being equal, everyone has the same opportunity to compete in the U.S. marketplace, success is determined by how hard someone works and not by their economic class, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, or race. Ethnic and racial identities are to be assimilated, lost, and erased through the celebrated "melting pot" of U.S. culture. Liberalism thus devalues the importance of communitarian experiences and social identities as determinants or barriers to individual success. Instead, it proposes that all individuals are fundamentally equal and that, regardless of their social identity, everyone can control his or her fate through hard work, learned skills, and acquired education- the foundational myth of a U.S. meritocracy. ~ Isabel Molina-Guzman

People of all races generally prefer the company of people like themselves. Racial diversity is a source of conflict, not strength. Non-whites, especially blacks and Hispanics, nurture a strong sense of racial pride and solidarity. Whites have little sense of racial solidarity, and most whites strongly condemn any signs of it. Immigration from non-European countries is changing the United States in profound ways, many of which whites find disagreeable. To the extent that these statements are true, they have serious implications both for the country as a whole and for whites as a group. ~ Jared Taylor

It's so easy to believe the pretty pictures on the website filled with racial diversity, to buy in to the well-crafted statements of purpose, to enjoy being invited into the process of "being part of the change." The role of a bridge builder sounds appealing until it becomes clear how often that bridge is your broken back. ~ Austin Channing Brown

Mind control survivors have identified doctors used by the CIA under Project MKULTRA as having used different aliases. I have personally spoken and corresponded with many of these child Cold War survivors. It seems colors were one of the most commonly used themes. Many survivors have identified Josef Mengele as using the aliases Dr. Green, Dr. Black, Dr. Swartz (black in German), Father Joseph, or Vaterchen (daddy) when he did their programming. The experiments and programming he used on us were of such a heinous nature, that they were not unlike some of those performed at Auschwitz.

In 1937, Mengele was appointed research assistant at the Third Reich Institute for Heredity, Biology, and Racial Purity. Mengele provided "experimental materials" to the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institute of Anthropology from twins including eyes, blood, and other body parts from Auschwitz. Mengele fled Auschwitz in January 1945 before the Russians liberated the camp. French government documents state that the Americans captured Mengele in 1946. According to the French, Mengele "was released without explanation by the Americans on November 19, 1946." The French claimed that American authorities confirmed the Mengele arrest and release on Feb. 29, 1947. ~ Carol Rutz

Denying that race matters is irrational in the face of segregation and all of the other forms of obvious racial inequity in society. It is even more irrational to believe that it is whites who are at the receiving end of discrimination. Maintaining this denial of reality takes tremendous emotional and psychic energy. ~ Robin DiAngelo

The issue of race, however, has been with us since our earliest beginnings as a nation. I believe it is even deeper and sharper than the other points of contention. It has bred fears, myths, and violence over centuries. It is the source of dark and dangerous irrationality, a current of social pathology running through our history and dimming our brighter achievements.

Most of the time the reservoir of racism remains stagnant. But--and this has been true historically for most societies--when major economic, social, or political crises arise, the backwaters are stirred and latent racial hostility comes to the surface. Scapegoats must be found, simple targets substituted for complex problems. The frustration and insecurity generated by these problems find an outlet in notions of racial superiority and inferiority. ~ Bayard Rustin

the genes of modern-day Africans are a treasure house for all humanity. They possess our species' greatest reservoir of genetic diversity, of which further study will shed new light on the heredity of the human body and mind. Perhaps the time has come, in light of this and other advances in human genetics, to adopt a new ethic of racial and hereditary variation, one that places value on the whole of diversity rather than on the differences composing the diversity. It would give proper measure to our species' genetic variation as an asset, prized for the adaptability it provides all of us during an increasingly uncertain future. Humanity is strengthened by a broad portfolio of genes that can generate new talents, additional resistance to diseases, and perhaps even new ways of seeing reality. For scientific as well as for moral reasons, we should learn to promote human biological diversity for its own sake instead of using it to justify prejudice and conflict. ~ Edward O. Wilson

Should I grab something, start crying and screaming, punch you or one of your detectives? Would that get your attention? Maybe the media would come running! I punch you; you arrest me! The media would be all over that! 'Crazy black mother punches police captain! Details at eleven!' I'll do that if it'll help me find my daughter! How's that sound to you? ~ Mark M. Bello

This book argues that mass incarceration is, metaphorically, the New Jim Crow and that all those who care about social justice should fully commit themselves to dismantling this new racial caste system. ~ Michelle Alexander

You see, I tell myself. Here is proof. I've known Christina my whole life. And yes, maybe there are differences between us - socioeconomic, political, racial - but that doesn't mean we can't connect, human to human, friend to friend. ~ Jodi Picoult

Prejudice is an opinion without judgment. ~ Voltaire

At its best, SF cinema is an allegorical site that invites the audience to safely examine and reflect on long-standing social issues in an unfamiliar setting, providing the possibility of viewing them in a new light. At its worst, the process of allegorical displacement invites audiences to affirm racist ideas, confirm racial fears, and reinforce dubious generalizations about race and the place of African Americans in U.S. society without employing overt racial language or explicit imagery. ~ Adilifu Nama