Quotes About Race

Trainers have to be cognizant of the many defensive strategies used by participants to avoid race talk in order to anticipate and overcome them.

The issue is not whether one is unbiased, but how aware, honest, and open their White counterparts are to their prejudices and stereotypes, and whether these biases will interfere with the White person's ability to relate to persons of color.

First, many people of color report being incensed when they felt their integrity was being assailed.

The problem with the maintenance of harmony is that it negates deeper explorations of biases, stereotypes, and nested emotions associated with race and racism. The teachable moment is lost.

race talk between several individuals does not occur in isolation from other observers or students; although other participants may not have actively engaged in the dialogue, they are usually vicariously involved. By shutting down the communication between two individuals, it shuts down the entire group process.

In order to deflect the perceived criticism, trainees may directly or indirectly attack the content of the communication (message) and/or the credibility of the communicator. When confronted with a defensive challenge by trainees, facilitators of race talk may also become defensive when they find that their message is being invalidated or that their credibility is being assailed.

Racial dialogues are microcosms of race relations in the United States; reenact the biases, prejudices, and stereotypes of the wider society; invalidate and punish dissenting voices; and force compliance on groups of color.

For White Americans, successful racial dialogues allow them to grasp the significance of what it means to be White, and how Whiteness with its accompanying invisible norms and standards are entrenched into their everyday lives. This racial awakening and the development of a nonracist identity is intimately linked to racial identity development (Helms, 1990, 1995; Sue, 1995, 2013; Tatum, 1992, 1997).

what race talk is likely to evoke in well-intentioned White Americans: denial and strong emotions such as fear, guilt, confusion, and helplessness.

allegations of playing the race card and the pressures of political correctness are games of verbal jujitsu used by dominant group members to portray and redefine White talk as the silenced, oppressed, and dissenting voice, while back talk is portrayed as the untouchable incorrect stance that needs to be challenged.

four major fear categories experienced by White Americans when race talk occurs: (1) fear of appearing racist, (2) fear of realizing their racism, (3) fear of confronting White privilege, and (4) fear of taking personal responsibility to end racism.

We are in a race between knowledge and catastrophe. If we keep track of what is important, never lower our standards or forget why we are here, we have the ability to determine the fate of the world.

The thing that has made the so-called Negro in America fail, more than any other thing, is your, my, lack of knowledge concerning history. We know less about history than anything else.

I believe in white supremacy until the blacks are educated to the point of responsibility. I don't believe in giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people.

[Michael] Gove will be the underdog fighting for the underdog in this leadership race.

I ask the clergy why don't I see myself represented in leadership? And I'm told, and this happens quite a bit, "We don't think about race when we hire. We just hire the best person for the job."

The greatest progress that the human race has made lies in learning how to make correct inferences.

On prohibiting anybody from learning anything: Why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.

The customs are as formalised as an eighteenth-century minuet, and a child at the race's knee learns the moves and twirls by osmosis and observation.

If you have no confidence in self, you are twice defeated in the race of life.

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.

I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life.

Much of our success was due to the much-abused institution of African servitude, for it enabled the white men to go into the army, and leave the cultivation of their fields and the care of their flocks, as well as of their wives and children, to those who, in the language of the Constitution, were "held to service or labor.