So You Want To Talk About Race Quotes
"You cannot put chains around the necks of other human beings or slaughter them wholesale, while maintaining social rules that prohibit such treatment, without first designating those people as somewhat less than human."
"The truth is, you don’t even have to ‘be racist’ to be a part of the racist system."
"It is about race if a person of color thinks it is about race."
"Racial oppression is a broad and cumulative force, it is not a system that puts all its eggs in one basket."
"We have to actually dismantle the machine if we want to make change."
"Systemic racism is a machine that runs whether we pull the levers or not, and by just letting it be, we are responsible for what it produces."
"Privilege, in the social justice context, is an advantage or a set of advantages that you have that others do not."
"If I call a white person a cracker, the worst I can do is ruin their day. If a white person thinks I’m a nigger, the worst they can do is get me fired, arrested, or even killed in a system that thinks the same—and has the resources to act on it."
"A privilege has to come with somebody else’s disadvantage—otherwise, it’s not a privilege."
"The truth is, we live in a society where the color of your skin still says a lot about your prognosis for success in life."
"I tweeted out some of my frustration, expressing the desire that, if he’d never see jail time due to a society that did not value black womanhood, he would at least be forever reminded of his misdeeds in any venture he tried to undertake."
"Intersectionality, the belief that our social justice movements must consider all of the intersections of identity, privilege, and oppression that people face in order to be just and effective, is the number one requirement of all of the work that I do."
"Watching my brother carefully reach for the glove compartment I was reminded of one time when I was pulled over at sixteen; I quickly reached for the glove compartment when asked for license and registration and the officer’s hand immediately went to his gun as he yelled 'STOP!'"
"We walk through the world with all our identities at once and therefore our day has an endless number of possible combinations of outcomes depending on how individual events and situations we encounter interact with our individual identities."
"Intersectionality helps ensure that fewer people are left behind and that our efforts to do better for some do not make things far worse for others."
"Affirmative action’s goal was to force educators and federal employers to get creative and proactive in their efforts to combat the effects that hundreds of years of racial and gender discrimination had had on the diversity of their workplaces and universities."
"Because I am not capable of cutting myself to pieces. I’m not capable of cutting away my blackness in order to support feminism that views the needs of women of color as divisive inconveniences."
"Nobody marches for us when we are raped, when we are killed, when we are denied work and equal pay."
"The belief that black people still need to be controlled by police is promoted by our politicians and funded by our taxpayers."
"ACCORDING TO THE LETTER FROM HIS SCHOOL THAT his mom forwarded to me, Sagan was having a very bad day. He had pushed one teacher, struck two others."
"The "school-to-prison pipeline" is the term commonly used to describe the alarming number of black and brown children who are funneled directly and indirectly from our schools into our prison industrial complex."
"Affirmative action took many forms throughout the US. At colleges and universities, it often took the form of increased recruitment efforts, extra consideration given to race and gender in the selection process, academic support programs, and increased financial aid."
"Our children are fighting for a world more just and more righteous than we had ever dared to dream of."
"The model minority myth is active racism that is harming Asian Americans, and we need to talk about it."
"Our children are remembering how many times we told them that they could do anything."
"The cumulative effect of these constant reminders that you are 'less than' does real psychological damage."
"The model minority myth makes it even harder for struggling Asian American students to find academic success."
"We raised our children with the confidence and the audacity to reach for what the promises of the '80s told us our children should be able to achieve."
"We still live in a world where our hair and our bodies are judged and controlled and violated by White Supremacy."
"Racial trauma is cumulative, and you cannot expect a person of color to react to each situation the way that you would having encountered it for the first time."
"The privilege you enjoy in not having to constantly suffer these indignities requires that you at least take responsibility for how your actions may be adding to them and the pain that causes."
"As long as we have had the spoken word, language has been one of the first tools deployed in efforts to oppress others."
"Hate crimes against all Asian American groups are given little attention in the United States."
"Between 41 and 61 percent of Asian American women will be physically or sexually abused by their partners in their lifetime—twice the national average for all women."
"The stereotype of the 'meek' Asian American has discouraged many from seeking political leadership and activism roles."
"The model minority myth puts a lot of pressure on Asian Americans to seem happy with their 'great success' in America."
"The model minority myth is often used to separate Asian Americans from other people of color."
"If you want to fight racism in America, you have to fight the model minority myth."
"Martin Luther King was public enemy number one. Seen as an even greater threat by our government than Malcolm X was."
"For hundreds of years we have been told that the path to freedom from racial oppression lies in our virtue."
"Do you believe in justice and equality? Because if you do, you believe in it all of the time, for all people."
"You have a right to your anger, sadness, and fear. These are natural reactions to the unnatural system of racial oppression."
"Our humanity is worth a little discomfort, it’s actually worth a lot of discomfort."
"Your privilege will keep you from fully understanding the pain caused to people of color by systemic racism."
"The core issue in discussions of racism and systemic oppression will always be racism and systemic oppression."
"You are not doing any favors, you are doing what is right."
"Talk. Please talk and talk and talk some more. But also act."