Quotes About Prejudice

Racism is what acquitted O. J. Simpson.

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.'

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.

Why is it that the hot chicks never can sing?

I'm no hillbilly singer.

Nobody wants a fat lead singer.

When I was in the country and I was trying to play, nobody seemed to pay too much attention to me. People used to say, 'That's just that ole blues singer.'

I grew up listening to Beethoven and old jazz singers like Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and Anita O'Day. But those were, like, the only women I listened to - I hated women pop singers.

It's funny: when I was a kid, my mom would reorganize the record collection all the time. She'd have classical, she'd have Celtic, she'd have rock and roll, and then she'd have female singers. And I don't like it that female singers are their own genre.

You hear blacks are good in sports and good singers. But you don't hear about black lawyers or black politicians. I learned things later, but went through some hurt before I learned - before I had a better picture of black people and a better understanding of myself.

Every single day of my life is about challenging people who think you can't do something because of the way you look.

Being a single mother in the late 1950s was a very shocking thing - and dreadful thing - for people.

Every single person in the Chicago independent scene said, 'You've got to be a bad guy. You're a Muslim. We're gonna make money. We're gonna call you Sheik Abdullah something. You're gonna wear a turban.'

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.

The rap community has been singled out as more homophobic than other groups, but I don't think that's right. It's homophobic, all right, but no more so than the heavy-metal community or the Hollywood community or any other community.

I'm not just a chick singer who sings high all the time.

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.

If you believe a black cat is bad luck, people think you're crazy, but plenty of times, if I see a black cat down my street, I turn around and go the other way. Even if I'm late. I'll be late for the airport and be in a limo, and if I see a black cat, I'll be like, 'Sir, you have to turn around and go down the next street.'

Have the colored people done anything to justify the prejudice against them that does exist in the hearts of so many white persons and, generally, of one great political party in this country? Have they done anything to justify it? No, sir.

I always said to my wife, 'That's for sissies. Girls get facials.' The first time I tried it I said, 'Oh man, what the hell have I been missing all these years.' Let me tell you, I go in there for about an hour and a half, and the girl does my facial and also massages my neck and my arms.

Just because I'm in favor of gay rights doesn't mean that I'm gay or doesn't mean I'm some kind of 'sissy' or something. That's the language that you hear in locker rooms.

The most moving scene for me in 'Pride and Prejudice' is the Pemberley music room scene: Elizabeth has just saved Darcy's sister from embarrassment and confusion, and as the music plays on, Darcy's look of gratitude becomes a look of love, which we see reciprocated in Elizabeth's eyes.