Quotes About Racism

Instead of thinking that racism is an irrational output of a basically rational and benign system, we should see it is a rational output of a basically irrational and unjust system. By "rational" I mean purposive and functional in sustaining the system that nurtures it.

When Wells-Barnett wrote in 1900, "It is now, even as it was in the days of slavery, an unpardonable sin for a Negro to resist a White man no matter how unjust or unprovoked the White man's attack may be," we might say that this still can be the case in certain situations and locales—especially if the White man is dressed in a blue uniform and wears a badge.

those who have an understanding of class power know that as class contradictions deepen and come to the fore, racism becomes not less but more important as a factor in class conflict.

Racism blurs and buries economic grievances. Whites are less likely to act against their bosses, being themselves too busy trying to keep African Americans down. Thus the working populace is divided against itself, making it difficult for White and Black workers to act in unison against the moneyed class.

I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist.

Racism is not first and foremost a skin problem. It is a sin problem. See, when you believe that racism is a skin problem, you can take three hundred years of slavery, court decisions, marches, and the federal government involvement and still not get it fixed right.

Sin is the reason we are racist, prejudiced, and lie to cover for our own.

Racism can be called our nation's own specific 'original sin.'

Racism is a sin and has no place in the church, including the Archdiocese of Chicago.

Too many of our fellow Americans have to struggle each day against the obstacles imposed by racism, history and original sin. These obstacles are real, and they affect the way police departments have acted toward Black Americans.

Sinatra was bothered with issues of anti-Semitism and racism all his life. The song and film he made 'The House I Live In,' was a deep message against prejudice and he was very proud to have recorded the song.

There can be racism in a system even if a particular episode of injustice is not a manifestation of that racism. Every single thing in the criminal justice system is not a manifestation of racism, but many things are.

Why go from the individual to the entire race, from the singular to the group, from the guilty to the innocent? We know why. That is how racism works. That is racism in action.

For white people, their identities rest on the idea of racism as about good or bad people, about moral or immoral singular acts, and if we're good, moral people, we can't be racist - we don't engage in those acts.

For nearly a century and a half, this country deluded itself into thinking that its greatest calamity, the Civil War, had nothing to do with one of its greatest sins, enslavement. It deluded itself in this manner despite available evidence to the contrary.

I'm not going to sit here now and say 'do this,' or 'do that.' But you must - must - expunge any vestige of racism.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

Facing sexism and racism and classism and transphobia, there are ways to choose to act in those situations, and there shouldn't be a prescriptive list of things that you have to say.

Little Haley Joel Osment in 'The Sixth Sense' can see dead people. Well, I can see racist people.

I have been attacked and mistreated for my skin colour since I was a child.

Our internal racism is still alive. We are still putting each other down and making jokes about each other because of the color of our skin. With women particularly, it's difficult because the beauty business says, 'If you don't look a certain way, God made a mistake.'

It's hard to love yourself when you've been told your whole life that there is something wrong with you - when you are called dirty because of your skin color.

When I got married, my marriage was illegal in 17 states because my husband had a different skin color than I did. And we saw those laws go down one at a time.

I think the fans are human, and they have their own mind. If someone doesn't like a person because of their skin color, it doesn't matter if you fight or you deliver mail; they're going to have that opinion.