Human beings are very skilled at pretending they are not what they are, and ignoring what is inside them. This includes ignoring their natural instincts, their primal instincts, because they have this notion that they...

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.

Racism is dead only to those who’ve closed their eyes and ears to the whole world around them.

But the real world doesn’t go away. Racism exists. People are getting hurt. And just because it’s not happening to you, doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

You have to work a bit harder to offend me because I’m from the home of some of the best racism in the world. I’m a snob when it comes to racism.

Unfortunately, ‘post racism’ is also a myth, like unicorns and black people who survive to the end of a horror movie.

Racism and religious bigotry are two essential pieces of baggage mankind carries as it moves from one century to the next.

But here in my hometown, history was like a fine dust that settled out on everything. There was nothing to counter it. The culture had been hardened by a religion suspect of joy, yet fascinated...

Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.

May 20, ’95 – Mississippi calls. She says, “All my working life I have done things to help black people. I can drive into the black part of town where no white person would dare...

Everybody granted that if “Tom” were white and free it would be unquestionably right to punish him–it would be no loss to anybody; but to shut up a valuable slave for life–that was quite another...

While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.

I believe in the freedom of expression, for to speak up against any form of oppression is Justice.But I cannot speak the same way for all when motives are to be measured.We must also accept...

Any concept of one person being superior to another can lead to racism.

It is when you start to have the interest of people in your heart that when you start to make a change.

On my more difficult days, I’m not sure what’s more of a pain in my ass — being black or being a woman. I’m happy to be both of these things, but the world keeps...

Racism negates two aspects of man’s life: reason and choice, or mind and morality, replacing them with chemical predestination.

for both parties to take up recognition that racism exists.

Not long ago, having expressed some disagreements in print with an old comrade of long standing, I was sent a response that he had published in an obscure newspaper. This riposte referred to my opinions...

The Cold Within”Six humans trapped in happenstanceIn dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story’s told.The first woman held hers backFor of the faces around the fire,She noticed...

If you believe that I’m a cop killer, you believe David Bowie is an astronaut.

the Government is not liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act for injuries to servicemen where injuries arise out of or are in the course of activity incident to service” (U.S. Supreme Court 1950). Federal...

Poor health was not just the result of random acts, bad luck, bad behavior or unfortunate genetics. Deliberate public policy decision about housing, education, parks and streets were the key drivers of racial differences in...

Eventually, some black thinkers believe, this “separation” may be the shortest route to an authentic communication at some future date when blacks and whites can enter into encounters in which they truly speak as equals...

Unwed white girls who became pregnant in the postwar years were considered psychologically disturbed but treatable, whereas their black counterparts were presumed to be biologically hypersexual and deviant. Historian Rickie Solinger demonstrates that in the...

I even felt a vicarious guilt, like a German meeting Jewish people in Poland who had never heard of the Holocaust, or that there were Jews in America, and trying to explain it to them....

The worlds within and without the Veil of Color are changing, and changing rapidly, but not at the same rate, not in the same way; and this must produce a peculiar wrenching of the soul,...

It’s the easiest thing in the world to be kind to someone, to show love, to forgive. You are born with this instinct – it should be your first reaction. NOT violence, anger and hatred!...

A coward’s gun is emptied when fear pulls the trigger, and hate is the ammunition of choice.

Although I have always rejected this fear of the other, and the racism that it inevitably fuels, I have learned from experience that it is a deeply rooted need in the human psyche. at the...

From other stories that have been handed down to me I know that my people, like many others in the slave states, went to church with their slaves, were baptized with them, and presumably expected...

Suspicion of Abuse gets to your toes before you see it in your face.

Slavery stands as an affront to human dignity.

Raising Black children — female and male — in the mouth of a racist, sexist, suicidal dragon is perilous and chancy. If they cannot love and resist at the same time, they will probably not...

There’s a strange uniformity in the vocabulary European soccer fans use to hate black people. The same primate insults get hurled. Although they’ve gotten better over time, the English and Italians developed the tradition of...

The other thing you can do is write a strong personal essay which lets admissions people inside your life, your heart, and your world….Anyway, it can be hard to figure out what to write about,...

His (Lincoln’s) patriotism was saved from idolatry by the overwhelming sense of the sovereignty of God.

I am first of all a white man, and only then a socialist.

Black is bountiful. White is witful. Together they are beautiful.

…The straitjackets of race prejudice and discrimination do not wear only southern labels. The subtle, psychological technique of the North has approached in its ugliness and victimization of the Negro the outright terror and open...

It was a roadblock, manned by an officer and several other soldiers. Sivaram and the trishaw driver were ordered out of the vehicle, and I was told to stay where I was. The soldiers held...

Today I’m on tell you bout a man from outer space.” She just loves hearing about peoples from outer space. Her favorite show on the tee-vee is My Favorite Martian, I pull on my antennae...

He seemed to hasten the retreat of departing light by his very presence; the setting sun dipped sharply, as though fleeing before our nigger; a black mist emanated from him; a subtle and dismal influence;...

The act of claiming an identity can be transformational. It can provide healing and empowerment. It can weld solidarity within a community. And, perhaps most importantly, it can diminish power from an oppressor, a dominant...

This solidarity business I used to talk about ain’t just–what do you youngsters call it?–theoretical. It means putting your body, your physical self, on the line, baby girl. Even when–especially when–it ain’t convenient.

Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty….A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and...

So, in “Melting Pot” the children (about a third of whom were kids of color) sang the line, “America was the new world and Europe was the old,” in one stroke eradicating the narratives of...

Conquest occurred through violence, and over-expolitation and oppression necessitate continued violence, so the army is present. There would be no contradiction in that, if terror reigned everywhere in the world, but the colonizer enjoys, in...

Racism is taught in our society, it is not automatic. It is learned behavior toward persons with dissimilar physical characteristics.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, historians have become both more accurate and more honest—fractionally more brave, one might say—about that ‘other’ cleansing of the regions and peoples that were ground to...