Quotes About Race

We all stand on the shoulders of our ancestors. We're in a relay race, relying on the financial and human capital of our parents and grandparents. Blacks were shackled for the early part of that relay race, and although many of the fetters have come off, whites have developed a huge lead.

I have been given a list of 35 white farmers in Mashonaland West alone. We say no to whites owning our land, and they should go... They can own companies and apartments... but not the soil. It is ours, and that message should ring loud and clear in Britain and the United States.

Liberal whites are the greatest enemy of African Americans.

For complicated historical and political reasons, we associate 'poor' in our public consciousness with 'black.' Terms such as 'welfare queen' and 'culture of poverty' became associated uniquely with the social maladies of African Americans in urban ghettos, despite the fact that poor whites outnumbered poor blacks.

Whites would rather not be involved in race matters, I think.

As soon as white folks say a play's good, the theater is jammed with blacks and whites.

I am hopeful about any future for whites in this country, but not entirely optimistic.

Whites have not had to build the cognitive or affective skills or develop the stamina that would allow for constructive engagement across racial divides.

Until blacks and whites see each other as brother and sister, we will not have parity. It's very clear.

The unemployment rate is still twice as high for blacks as for whites.

It's an unfortunate fact that in the male black population, a very significant percentage of them, more so than whites or other minority candidates, because of convictions, prison records, are never going to be hired by a police department. That's a reality. That's not a byproduct of stop-and-frisk.

In America, many marginally competent or flatly incompetent whites are hired every day -some because their white skin suits the conscious or unconscious racial preference of their employers. The white children of alumni are often grandfathered into elite universities in what can only be seen as a residual benefit of historic white privilege.

Negroland is my name for a small region of Negro America where residents were sheltered by a certain amount of privilege and plenty. Children in Negroland were warned that few Negroes enjoyed privilege or plenty and that most whites would be glad to see them returned to indigence, deference and subservience.

The whites come to applaud a Negro performer just like the colored do. When you've got the respect of white and colored, you can ease a lot of things.

I came across few whites as a boy at Qunu. The local magistrate, of course, was white, as was the nearest shopkeeper. Occasionally, white travelers or policemen passed through our area. These whites appeared as grand as gods to me, and I was aware that they were to be treated with a mixture of fear and respect.

Too many whites still see blacks as a group apart.

Even if it's a white crowd, I tell my jokes for the four black people in the room, not the 100 whites.

Whites know never tell blacks what you really think and what you really feel because you risk being seen as a racist. And the result of that is that to a degree, we as blacks live in a bubble. Nobody tells us the truth. Nobody tells us what they would do if they were in our situation. Nobody really helps us.

America under 30 is a more non-whites place than America over 60. And we know that non-whites and whites vote differently.

In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in 1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to only 36 percent of whites.

Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.

We were taught in school, and I was taught at home and in church, that blacks and whites were equal and we should not discriminate based on skin color, even if my school was almost entirely white.

The American Negro never can be blamed for his racial animosities - he is only reacting to 400 years of the conscious racism of the American whites.

For me, personally, life in South Africa had come to an end. I had been lucky in some of the whites I had met. Meeting them had made a straight 'all-blacks-are-good, all-whites-are-bad' attitude impossible. But I had reached a point where the gestures of even my friends among the whites were suspect, so I had to go or be forever lost.