Quotes from Beverly Daniel Tatum

It is important to understand that the system of advantage is perpetuated when we do not acknowledge its existence.

The relevant question is not whether all Whites are racist but how we can move more White people from a position of active or passive racism to one of active antiracism.

We all have a sphere of influence. Each of us needs to find our own sources of courage so that we can begin to speak. There are many problems to address, and we cannot avoid them indefinitely. We cannot continue to be silent. We must begin to speak, knowing that words alone are insufficient. But I have seen that meaningful dialogue can lead to effective action. Change is possible.

For many people of color, learning to break the silence is a survival issue. To remain silent would be to disconnect from her own experience, to swallow and internalize her own oppression.The cost of silence is too high.

Learning to spot "that stuff "—whether it is racist, or sexist, or classist—is an important skill for children to develop.

Children who have been silenced often enough learn not to talk about race publicly. Their questions don't go away, they just go unasked.

The task of resisting our own oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of acknowledging the complicity in the oppression of others.

In a situation of unequal power, a subordinate group has to focus on survival. It becomes very important for the subordinates to become highly attuned to the dominants as a way of protecting themselves from them.

Sometimes the assumptions we make about others come not from what we have been told or what we have seen on television or in books, but rather rom what we have not been told. The distortion of historical information about people of color leads young people (and older people to) to make assumptions that may go unchallenged for a long time.

If young people are exposed to images of African American academic achievement in their early years, they won't have to define school achievement as something for Whites only. They will know that there is a long history of Black intellectual achievement.

Social psychologist Susan Fiske writes,"It is a simple principle: People pay attention to those who control their outcomes. In an effort to predict and possibly influence what is going to happen to them, people gather information about those with power."11

The task for each of us, White and of color, is to identify what our own sphere of influence is (however large or small) and to consider how it might be used to interrupt the cycle of racism.

Most of the White people I talk to either have not thought about their race and so don't feel anything, or have thought about it and felt guilt and shame. These feelings of guilty and shame are part of the hidden costs of racism.

The task of resisting our own oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of acknowledging our complicity in the oppression of others.

In terms of intergroup relations, the myth of the model minority has served to pit Asian Americans against other groups targeted by racism. the accusing message of the dominant society to Blacks, Latinxs, and Native Americans is, 'They overcame discrimination—why can't you?' Of course...any group comparisons that don't take into account differential starting points are inherently flawed.

In order to prevent chronic discomfort, Whites may learn not to notice. But in not noticing, one loses opportunities for greater insight into oneself and one's experience. A significant dimension of who one is in the world, one's Whiteness, remains uninvestigated and perceptions of daily experience are routinely distorted. Privilege goes unnoticed, and all but the most blatant acts of racial bigotry are ignored. Not noticing requires energy.

What if I make a mistake?' you may be thinking. 'Racism is a volatile issue, and I don't want to say or do the wrong thing.' In almost forty years of teaching and leading workshops about racism, I have made many mistakes. I have found that a sincere apology and a genuine desire to learn from one's mistakes is usually rewarded with forgiveness. If we wait for perfection, we will never break the silence. The cycle of racism will continue uninterrupted.

Despair is an act of resignation I am not willing to make.

Regardless of your subject matter, there are ways to engage students in critical thinking about racism which are relevant to your discipline.

Resisting the stereotypes and affirming other definitions of themselves is part of the task facing young Black women in both White and Black communities.

Not noticing requires energy.

Unfortunately for Black teenagers, those cultural stereotypes do not usually include academic achievement.

What we do know is that more than fifty years after the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the struggle for the right to vote continues.

I wrote the first version of this book in 1996, in the closing years of the twentieth century. Now, almost two decades into the twenty-first, it seems we are still struggling with what W. E. B. Du Bois identified in 1906 as the "problem of the color line," even though the demographic composition of that color line has changed quite a bit since then.