Race Quotes

“I used to be offended when people would compare me to Erykah Badu. Because I'm black, thick, and have large lips? There's nothing similar about us whatsoever, and I felt very disrespected by the fact that people needed to pigeonhole me. I wasn't even raised on Erykah Badu!”

“Whenever a big white man picks up a banjo, my cheeks tighten.”

“Golf is one of the few sports where a white man can dress like a black pimp and not look bad.”

“Golf is a game where white men can dress up as black pimps and get away with it.”

“I always wanted to play a big, black man, but that would cost too much make-up.”

“Ninety-seven percent of the CEOs of the Fortune 500 are white men, and what they do radiates all the way down into poor areas and cities around our country. Like predatory lending and misallocation of municipal services. These guys get municipal service, poor areas don't. So they run the economy into the ground, and who suffers the most? The poor pay more and they die earlier.”

“I would risk violence a thousand times rather than risk the emasculation of the whole race.”

“One of my theories is that the hearts of men are about alike, no matter what their skin color.”

“I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.”

“In Stamps the segregation was so complete that most Black children didn't really, absolutely know what whites looked like.”

“The first election in which all South Africans took part was in April, 1994. There were long queues [lines] of employers and employees, black and white. In the sense of Africans, Coloreds and Indians - when I talk about blacks, I mean those three. Blacks and whites mingled to vote without any hitches. Many people would have expected a great deal of tension, clashes and violence, but it did not occur.”

“The expectation of my life was that I might be able to work for some good white folks. Now I got some good white folks working for me.”

“If you happen to fall in love with someone in another race, it's more difficult, because you have to translate yourself.”

“I have crossed over on the backs of Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Fannie Lou Hamer, and Madam C. J. Walker. Because of them I can now live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit.”

“Sport can create hope, where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers.”

“Living in a state of terror was new to many white people in America, but black people have been living in a state of terror in this country for more than 400 years.”

“Sports have the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire, the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sports can create hope, where there was once only despair. It is more powerful than governments in breaking down racial barriers. It laughs in the face of all types of discrimination. Sports is the game of lovers.”

“Ours is one continual struggle against a degradation sought to be inflicted upon us by the Europeans, who desire to degrade us to the level of the raw Kaffir whose occupation is hunting, and whose sole ambition is to collect a certain number of cattle to buy a wife with and, then, pass his life in indolence and nakedness.”

“I thought my teeth were white until I washed my face with Noxzema. My teeth are off-white. I'm not even white. I'm off-white. It's a new race; we will prevail!”

“No one is born hating another person because of the colour of his skin, or his background, or his religion.”

“My respect for human beings is based not on the colour of a man’s skin nor authority he may wield, but purely on merit.”

“There are leaders who know that however furious the debate, there are good men and women in all population groups - amongst blacks, amongst whites, and amongst Afrikaans and English speaking people.”

“The Black female is assaulted in her tender years by all those common forces of nature at the same time she is caught in the tripartite crossfire of masculine prejudice, white illogical hate and Black lack of power.”

“The unemployed, poverty-stricken white man must be made to realize that he is in the very same boat with the Negro. Together, they could exert massive pressure on the government to get jobs for all. Together, they could form a grand alliance. Together, they could merge all people for the good of all.”

“Who would thought only of themselves and kill their race? You would hate other people if you don't want to stay who you are.”