Jon Stewart: Your mother is from Kansas. She's a white woman. Your father, African. Are you concerned that you may go into the voting booth and . . . your white half will all of a sudden decide, "I can't do this"?Barack Obama: Yeah. It's a problem. —From The Daily Show, October 2008 More about this quote Tags: politics history USA race Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies. —Shirley Abbott More about this quote Tags: history knowledge Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There is inherited wealth in this country and also inherited poverty. —John F. Kennedy More about this quote Tags: poverty USA wealth Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I have come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I can count on cashing in each day, but about which I was meant to remain oblivious. White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, code books, visas, clothes, tools, and blank checks. —Peggy McIntosh More about this quote Tags: privilege whiteness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
In this country "American" means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. —Toni Morrison More about this quote Tags: power language America dominance Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I learned to believe in freedom, to glow when the word democracy was used, and to practice slavery from morning to night. I learned it the way all of my Southern people learn it: by closing door after door until one's mind and heart and conscience are blocked off from each other and from reality. —Lillian Smith More about this quote Tags: reality freedom democracy conscience slavery Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Contrary to today's stereotypes, racists do not always chew tobacco and drive pickup trucks with gun racks. They wear silk shirts, treat women as possessions, and talk about human rights at cocktail parties far from communities of people of color. The men in pickup trucks are just as likely to be warm and caring as the high-minded liberals are to be racists. —Wilma Mankiller More about this quote Tags: racism caring discrimination racists human rights Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it. —Joseph Conrad More about this quote Tags: war history theft conquest Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
There's a stereotype that black people are lazy. I don't know if that's true, but I know white people went all the way to Africa to get out of doing work. —Lance Crouther More about this quote Tags: work laziness black people stereotypes Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
I learned to slip back and forth between my black and white worlds. One of those tricks I had learned: People were satisfied so long as you were courteous and smiled and made no sudden moves. They were more than satisfied; they were relieved — such a pleasant surprise to find a well-mannered young black man who didn't seem angry all the time. —Barack Obama More about this quote Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
A minority group has "arrived" only when it has the right to produce some fools and scoundrels without the entire group paying for it. —Carl T. Rowan More about this quote Tags: fools race discrimination Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
If a white man falls off a chair drunk, it's just a drunk. If a Negro does, it's the whole damn Negro race. —Bill Cosby More about this quote Tags: perception race blackness whiteness Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do something. Anything. —Colleen Patrick-Goudreau More about this quote Tags: action power impotence change Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Tis not the dying for a faith that is so hard . . . 'tis the living up to it that is difficult. —William Makepeace Thackeray More about this quote Tags: difficulty faith Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email
Prayer is meaningless unless it is subversive, unless it seeks to overthrow and to ruin the pyramids of callousness, hatred, opportunism, falsehoods. —Abraham Joshua Heschel More about this quote Tags: power meaning change revolution Permalink for this quote facebook twitter tumblr email