Quotes from Beverly Daniel Tatum

The task of resisting our own oppression does not relieve us of the responsibility of acknowledging our complicity in the oppression of others. Our ongoing examination of who we are in our full humanity, embracing all of our identities, create the possibility of building alliances that may ultimately free us all.

The task for each of us, White or 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.

It has been said that to teach is to touch the future. Helping students to see the past more clearly, to understand and communicate with others more fully in the present, and to imagine the future more justly is to transform the world. There is nothing more hopeful than that. I started this book with the questions, Is it better? My answer is: Not yet, but it could be. It's up to us to make sure it is. I remain hopeful.

Over the past 40 years, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (USCCR), an independent government agency, has held numerous hearings on discrimination in border towns surrounding reservations.… In South Dakota, the commission heard testimony about a police department that found reasons to fine Natives hundreds of dollars, then "allowed" them to work off the debt on a ranch. USCCR Rocky Mountain director Malee Craft described the situation as "slave labor.

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.

Ridiculing the high achievers is a way of regaining a sense of dignity and power in the face of their own disappointment and resentment.… When black students disproportionately experience low achievement in the context of disproportionate white high achievement, some emphasize their black authenticity, seeking dignity in racial solidarity."40

Although only one-quarter (25 percent) of the public believe that whites face a lot of discrimination in America today, a significantly larger number express concern about the existence of so-called 'reverse discrimination' against whites. More than four in ten (43 percent) Americans say that discrimination against whites has become as big a problem as discrimination against blacks and other minorities.

Half (50 percent) of White Americans agree that discrimination against Whites has become a problem equivalent to that against people of color. That percentage is even higher among working-class Whites (60 percent), with 39 percent of working-class Whites disagreeing

Just as girls who have become interested in boys become disdainful of their friends still interested in dolls, the Black teens who are at the table can be quite judgmental toward those who are not. "If I think it is a sign of authentic Blackness to sit at this table, then you should too.

Yes, we have an innate tendency to think in us and them categories, but we look to the leader to help us know who the us is and who the them is. The leader can define who is in and who is out... When the leader draws the circle in an exclusionary way, with the rhetoric of hostility, the sense of threat among the followers is heightened. When the rhetoric is expansive and inclusionary, the threat is reduced.

What is problematic is that the young people are operating with a very limited definition of what it means to be Black, based largely on cultural stereotypes.

The particular combination of the explicit communication of high standards and the demonstrated assurance of the teacher's belief in the student's ability to succeed (as evidenced by the effort to provide detailed, constructive feedback) was a powerful intervention for Black students...it was an exceedingly effective way to generate the trust needed to motivate Black students to make their best effort.

It has been said that to teach is to touch the future.

Not surprisingly, of all racial groups, Whites are the most isolated. They are the most likely to live in racially homogeneous communities and the least likely to come into contact with people racially different from themselves.23

Mike Rawlings, the mayor of Dallas, agreed with that sentiment and spoke in defense of the Black Lives Matter movement and the organizers of what had been a peaceful march. "Our police officers died for the Black Lives Matter movement. We were protecting those individuals. That is not a racist organization."176

For example, achieving in school and at work was considered important by Latinx teens in the study because success would allow them to take care of family members. Conversely, White American teens considered education and work as a means of gaining independence from their families.

But 62 percent of White women without college degrees voted for Trump

Only 3 percent of executives, senior-level officials, and managers in the US are Black. Only 4 percent of doctors and 5 percent of attorneys are Black.6 Additionally, a 2016 analysis of federal government data by the Pew Research Center finds that Blacks are, on average, at least twice as likely as Whites to be poor or to be unemployed; in 2014 the median White household income was $71,300 while the median Black household income was $43,300.

While perhaps not everyone who voted for Donald Trump shared the bigoted views of his White supremacist supporters or agreed with the offensive statements he himself made about Mexicans, Muslims, inner-city Black and Latinx communities, or women, on Election Day those things did not prevent millions of people from saying yes to Trump. That is a painful reality for those who have been his target.

white households are about thirteen times as wealthy as Black households—a gap that has grown wider since the Great Recession.

Parental nurturing was replaced with forced assimilation, hard physical labor, harsh discipline, and emotional, physical, and often sexual abuse.

Legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin observed, "The North Carolina Republican Party actually sent out a press release boasting about how its efforts drove down African-American turnout in this election."194

Zhou and Lee found that even Asian students who exhibited mediocre or below-average academic performance were given the benefit of the doubt by teachers and encouraged to improve, and sometimes placed in honors or AP courses without the academic profile usually required for such placement. By contrast, Mexican participants in their study were rarely placed in the honors or AP classes.

Zhou and Lee identify another factor important to the successful educational outcomes of Asian children: mind-set. "Asian immigrants have been raised in countries where the prevalent belief is that effort, rather than ability, is the most critical ingredient for achievement.… By contrast, native-born American parents believe that their children's outcomes are more heavily influenced by innate ability.