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Quotes About Racism

Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.
~ Frantz Fanon
Educated blacks] Society refuses to consider them genuine Negroes. The Negro is a savage, whereas the student is civilized. "You're us," and if anyone thinks you are a Negro he is mistaken, because you merely look like one.
~ Frantz Fanon
It is the racist who creates the inferiorized.
~ Frantz Fanon
As soon as the Negro comes to an understanding of himself, and understands the rest of the world differently, when he gives birth to hope and forces back the racist universe, it is clear that his trumpet sounds more clearly and his voice less hoarsely. The new fashions in jazz are not simply born of economic competition. We must without any doubt see in them one of the consequences of the defeat, slow but sure, of the southern world of the United States.
~ Frantz Fanon
Deep down in the European unconscious has been hollowed out an excessively black pit where the most immoral instincts and unmentionable desires slumber. And since every man aspires to whiteness and light, the European has attempted to repudiate this primitive personality, which does its best to defens itself. When European civilisation came into contact with the black world, with these savages, everyone was in agreement that these block people were the essence of evil.
~ Frantz Fanon
Whether he likes it or not, the black man has to wear the livery the white man has fabricated for him
~ Frantz Fanon
Dernièrement, un camarade nous racontait cette histoire. Un Martiniquais arrivant au Havre entre dans un café. Avec une parfaite assurance, il lance : « Garrrçon ! un vè de biè. » Nous assistons là à une véritable intoxication. Soucieux de ne pas répondre à l'image du nègre-mangeant-les-R, il en avait fait une bonne provision, mais il n'a pas su répartir son effort.
~ Frantz Fanon
and a man, half black and half white, on his right arm. That means something in skinhead lore, but I don't know what.
~ Fred Rosen
The ground which a colored man occupies in this country is, every inch of it, sternly disputed.
~ Frederick Douglass
But then, if it's the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn't the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter? No. Because the humanity wasn't stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens. In order for slavery to work, in order for us to buy, sell, beat, and trade people like animals, Americans had to completely dehumanize slaves. And whether we directly participated in that or were
~ Brene Brown
In some situations we had to self-protect to stay physically or emotionally safe. Vulnerability is the greatest casualty of trauma. When we're raised in unsafe environments, confronted with racism, violence, poverty, sexism, homophobia, and pervasive shaming, vulnerability can be life-threatening and armor is safety.
~ Brene Brown
But then, if it's the case that we can care about citizens and the police, shouldn't the rallying cry just be All Lives Matter? No. Because the humanity wasn't stripped from all lives the way it was stripped from the lives of black citizens.
~ Brene Brown
the constitutional amendment that abolished slavery also managed to perpetuate the fatal compromise of the Constitution, which had counted the slave as only three-fifths of a person, and that is no person at all.
~ Brenda Wineapple
A dead black man—nothing to bother about.
~ Henning Mankell
For some reason, a lot of folks seem to think that until very recently every Southern politician would go home at night, wait for it to get dark, take a white sheet out of his closet, and then go tearing around the countryside, burning crosses and raising hell.
~ Herman E. Talmadge
I came back from university thinking I knew all about politics and racism, not knowing my dad had been one of the youngest-serving Labour councillors in the town and had refused to work in South Africa years ago because of the situation there. And he's never mentioned it - you just find out. That's a real man to me. A sleeping lion.
~ Johnny Vegas
Even if I don't always behave as I should, this still doesn't explain why so many people have something against me. But you know how it is. A lot of people vent themselves by coming to the stadium to yell at me. I hope it's not racism. I tell myself that it's not racism; it's because I'm tough, and I repeat this to myself.
~ Mario Balotelli
You know, modern liberals are just, I think frankly, totally off the deep end... their only answer is to yell racism and hide.
~ Newt Gingrich
I grew up in a largely black community during the '70s and '80s that scoffed at 'white' music. That music - folk, rock, some disco - was considered soulless, aberrant, just one more example of the Caucasian's desire to scream and yell and demand whatever their privilege and perpetual adolescence dictated they should demand.
~ Hilton Als
To allow injustice and inequality invites a Ferguson to your community. We must stand together, black, white, brown, red, and yellow and fight for justice and equality for all. It's the only way to avoid more Fergusons.
~ Jesse Jackson
I've heard about productions where it still happens: yellow face, taping up the eyes. It's hard to talk about it in a constructive way.
~ Gemma Chan
Yes, there is racism. There is discrimination. Mr. Trump may have the most powerful job in the world, but that does not make him a respectful person.
~ Carmen Yulin Cruz
Yes, for blacks, racism functions without the actual presence of whites, just as for whites it functions without the actual presence of blacks! Beliefs, conventions, history do the work.
~ Margo Jefferson
It's becoming much more common to see yoga studios offer classes aimed exclusively at people of color who are searching for ways to cope with racism and fears around police brutality.
~ Jenna Wortham