#Racism Quotes

“Who makes and keeps the Jew or the Negro base, who but you, who exclude them from the rights which others enjoy?”

“When I was in high school if you were black and lived in Detroit, and you wanted to drive down to Florida to go on vacation, you had to plan to drive all the way through, because you couldn't stop in a hotel all the way through South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia. We can't even fathom such a thing now, can we?”

“In USA, a black man only have like five years we can exhibit maximum strength, and that's right now while you a teenager, while you still strong, while you still wanna lift weights, while you still wanna shoot back. 'Cause once you turn 30, it's like they take the heart and soul out of a man, out of a black man, in this country. And you don't wanna fight no more.”

“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments of both body and mind.”

“If you're a black man, they really call you out and have you deal with them.”

“Misplaced hate makes disgrace the races.”

“When the charge first came up, I hated black women. Then, going to trial, I started seeing the black women that was helping me. It's mostly black female guards. They treat me with human respect.”

“I ain't racist but lets trade places.”

“I guess cause i'm black boy, I'm supposed to say 'peace', sing songs, and get capped on.”

“The sad and tragic fact is that the civil rights movement, despite its honorable and courageous past, has over the years degenerated into a demagogic hustle, promoting the mindless racism they once fought against.”

“Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.”

“If you truly believe in the brotherhood of man, then you must believe that blacks are just as capable of being racists as whites are.”

“I don't go so far as to think that the only good Indians are dead Indians, but I believe nine out of ten are, and I shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of the tenth.”

“Never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never saw even an elemental trait of painting or sculpture.”

“We must never remain silent in the face of bigotry. We must condemn those who seek to divide us. In all quarters and at all times, we must teach tolerance and denounce racism, anti-Semitism and all ethnic or religious bigotry wherever they exist as unacceptable evils. We have no place for haters in America -- none, whatsoever.”

“The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.”

“Come on now! You kick out the gooks, the next thing you know, you have to kick out the chinks, the spicks, the spooks, the kikes and all that's going to be left is a couple of brain-dead rednecks.”

“It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews. The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.”

“I think education is power. I think that being able to communicate with people is power. One of my main goals on the planet is to encourage people to empower themselves." Another "I was raised to believe that excellence is the deterrent to racism and sexism. And that's how I operate my life." And another "It does not matter who you are or where you came from. The ability to triumph begins with you. Always.”

“Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.”

“Whatever your issue is, whether it's racism or homophobia or policy issues or taxes or urban decay or health care, you're not going to go anywhere with it if we don't focus on the concentration of power.”

“We are growing up. We are growing up! Out of the idiocies - the ignorances of racism and sexism and ageism and all those ignorances.”

“If you will have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is convince yourself that the person is subhuman. The second thing you have to do is convince your allies so you'll have some help, and the third and probably unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he or she is subhuman and deserves it.”

“I will not sit in a room with black people when the N word is used. I know it was meant to belittle a person, so I will not sit there and have that poison put on me. Now a black person can say, 'Oh, you know, I can use this word because I'm black.'”

“If you have a person enslaved, the first thing you must do is to convince yourself that the person is subhuman. And won't mind the enslavement. The second thing you must do is convince your allies that the person is subhuman so that you have some support. But the third and the unkindest cut of all is to convince that person that he, she, is not quite a first class citizen.”

“There are still generations of people, older people, who were born and bred and marinated in it, in that prejudice and racism, and they just have to die.”

“The plague of racism is insidious, entering into our minds as smoothly and quietly and invisibly as floating airborne microbes enter into our bodies to find lifelong purchase in our bloodstreams.”

“A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.”

“The Indian is but a sketch in red crayon of a rudimental manhood. To the problem of his relation to the white race, there is one solution: extermination.”

“Political division, based on color, is entirely artificial; and when it disappears, so will the domination of one color group by another.”

“Why, of all places in Johannesburg, the Indian location should be chosen for dumping down all kaffirs of the town, passes my comprehension. Of course, under my suggestion, the Town Council must withdraw the Kaffirs from the Location. About this mixing of the Kaffirs with the Indians I must confess I feel most strongly. I think it is very unfair to the Indian population, and it is an undue tax on even the proverbial patience of my countrymen.”

“A story went the rounds about a San Franciscan white matron who refused to sit beside a Negro civilian on the streetcar, even after he made room for her on the seat. Her explanation was that she would not sit beside a draft dodger who was a Negro as well. She added that the least he could do was fight for his country the way her son was fighting on Iwo Jima. The story said that the man pulled his body away from the window to show an armless sleeve. He said quietly and with great dignity, "Then ask your son to look around for my arm, which I left over there.”

“When Negroes looked for the second phase, the realization of equality, they found that many of their white allies had quietly disappeared.... To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.”

“Jinnah is a constant source of inspiration for all those who are fighting against racial and group discrimination.”

“The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes - just came into the African-American community and maimed people because they didn't agree with God's choice for the colors of the people's skin.”

“We must stand up and say, "I'm black and I'm beautiful," and this self-affirmation is the black man's need, made compelling by the white man's crimes against him.”

“When it comes to racism, you hear people say, "I don't care if people are white, black, purple or green." Hold on, now, purple or green? Come on now, you gotta draw the line somewhere.”

“I detest racialism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man.”

“I hate racial discrimination most intensely and all its manifestations. I have fought all my life; I fight now, and will do so until the end of my days. Even although I now happen to be tried by one, whose opinion I hold in high esteem, I detest most violently the set-up that surrounds me here. It makes me feel that I am a Black man in a White man's court. This should not be I should feel perfectly at ease and at home with the assurance that I am being tried by a fellow South African, who does not regard me as an inferior, entitled to a special type of justice.”

“Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them.”

“Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.”

“Why should they ask me to put on a uniform and go ten thousand miles from home and drop bombs and bullets on brown people in Vietnam while so-called Negro people in Louisville are treated like dogs and denied simple human rights?”

“The laws that stopped blacks from voting were the worst, because they prevented blacks from voting someone into parliament who could change the other laws. Even though the blacks were the majority of the population, they were still not getting a say.”

“There is no easy way to create a world where men and women can live together... But if such a world is created in our lifetime, it will be done by rejecting the racism, materialism, and violence that has characterized Western civilization and especially by working toward a world of brotherhood, cooperation, and peace.”

“The Negro who experiences bitter and agonizing circumstances as a result of some ungodly white person is tempted to look upon all white persons as evil, if he fails to look beyond his circumstances. But the minute he looks beyond his circumstances and sees the whole of the situation, he discovers that some of the most implacable and vehement advocates of racial equality are consecrated white persons.”

“Being a Negro in America means trying to smile when you want to cry. It means trying to hold on to physical life amid psychological death. It means the pain of watching your children grow up with clouds of inferiority in their mental skies. It means having their legs off, and then being condemned for being a cripple.”

“We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.”

“I'd like to say that Muslims are never in violence with white people. It's the black man who love you. See, you don't let him in your toilet, you don't let him in your restroom, you don't let him marry your daughter, you gotta fight. So, we're not gonna be botherin' you, you understand. Muslims don't come in, we don't have no trouble with you. It's just the integrator.”

“Racism is a blight on the human conscience”

“I would say things like 'I am the greatest! I'm pretty! If you talk jive, you'll drop in five! I float like a butterfly, sting like a bee! I'm pretty!' When white people heard me talking like this, some said, 'That black man talks too much. He's bragging.'”