Quotes About Prejudice

My own kind? If I had to pinpoint a moment when the human race divided into the severe distinctions of blak and whyte, that was it: people belonged to one of two colours and in the society I was about to join my colour, not my personality or ability, would determine my fate.

Almost eight years, and Edison had only slipped and called her a nigger once. She'd been in no hurry to forgive him for it, but he'd apologized profusely—and had cried and played Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" over and over again on his piano before she let him back into their bedroom.

Republicans have cultivated, into a fine art, the ability to divide people up by race, gender, nationality, or sexual orientation. That's what they do. That is the essence of their politics.

First of all, they came to take the gypsies and I was happy because they pilfered. Then they came to take the Jews and I said nothing, because they were unpleasant to me. Then they came to take homosexuals, and I was relieved, because they were annoying me. Then they came to take the Communists, and I said nothing because I was not a Communist. One day they came to take me, and there was nobody left to protest. Bertold Brecht, inspired by Emil Gustav Friedrich Martin Niemöller

In The Reason for Democracy, published after his death in 1976, Kalman Silvert of New York University provided another pungent description of false patriots: "People who wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim the sanctity of the nation are usually racists, contemptuous of the poor and dedicated to keeping the community of 'ins' small and pure of blood, spirit and mind.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.

I once sat down on a bench at Cape Town railway station where the notice "Whites Only" was obscured. A few moments later a white man approached and shouted: 'Get off!' It never occurred to him that he was achieving the opposite of his dreams of superiority and had become a living object of contempt, that human beings, when they are human, dare not conduct themselves in such ways.

Before the white man became universally disliked for his mental outlook, it was there. The white man found only too many people who looked different. That was all that outraged the receivers of his discrimination, that he applied the technique of the wild jiggling dance and the rattling tin cans to anyone who was not a white man.

The whole village was involved. There was no longer buzz, buzz, buzz. Something they liked as Africans to pretend themselves incapable of-- being oppressive and prejudiced-- was being exposed. They always knew it was there but no oppressor believes in his oppression.

In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination--tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination

The feminists had destroyed the old image of woman, but they could not erase the hostility, the prejudice, the discrimination that still remained.

some of them sent curious glances her way. She imagined they didn't get many black patrons here…

In their minds, women can't do anything wrong.

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.

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

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

She dearly hoped her gender would not be a problem because she did not have the time to educate a man on the fine points of what a woman of the nineteenth century could achieve.

Why do men want unmarried women to be so ignorant?

Eddy dreamed of owning her own restaurant. It was a common belief that women like her, the descendant of slaves, had no right to dream.

The brown paper bag test was well-known. Eddy always saw it as both shameful and ridiculous.

bigotry practiced by those outside the race was harmful enough without bigotry being meted out by those within.

while still another promised to find out if it was true that she ate raw skinned squirrels for breakfast and slept outside in a tepee.

Before she could put Paula in her place, a beautifully attired older woman standing near her said pointedly, "Miss July, please don't judge we Philadelphians by this graceless visitor from Memphis.

If you was white, should be all right,If you was brown, could stick around,But as you's black, whoa brother,Get back, get back, get back.