“People still get shot because of their color - people still get mistrusted because of their religion - people still get sneered at because of their gender and sexuality. Does this look like a civilized world? We may have the tangible brain capacity to build a civilized world, but we are not there yet, and we are not going to reach that destination any time soon. However, the work must begin now.”
“In order to prevent chronic discomfort, Whites may learn not to notice. But in not noticing, one loses opportunities for greater insight into oneself and one s experience. A significant dimension of who one is in the world, one s Whiteness, remains uninvestigated and perceptions of daily experience are routinely distorted. Privilege goes unnoticed, and all but the most blatant acts of racial bigotry are ignored. Not noticing requires energy.”
“What if I make a mistake? you may be thinking. Racism is a volatile issue, and I don t want to say or do the wrong thing. In almost forty years of teaching and leading workshops about racism, I have made many mistakes. I have found that a sincere apology and a genuine desire to learn from one s mistakes is usually rewarded with forgiveness. If we wait for perfection, we will never break the silence. The cycle of racism will continue uninterrupted.”
“One cannot escape the question by hand-waving at the past, disavowing the acts of one s ancestors, nor by citing a recent date of ancestral immigration. The last slave holder has been dead for a very long time. The last soldier to endure Valley Forge has been dead much longer. To proudly claim the veteran and disown the slave holder is patriotism á la carte.”
“I see the fight against sexism, racism, poverty, and even war finding their union not in synonymity but in their ultimate goal — a world more humane.”
“We need to acknowledge that an important part of interrupting the cycle of oppression is constant reeducation, and then sharing what we learn with the next generation.”
“We cannot solve the problem of race in America while ignoring our deep and painful history. Our tendency to ignore our tainted history may arise from a warped self-perception. We do not need to deal with our tainted past because we have risen above that problematic history and moved to a postracial, colorblind America. An assumed exceptionalism belies the belief that we do not have to deal with our history because through our exceptional status we have overcome the past. The destruction of black bodes and black minds can be justified because their sacrifice helped to build our exceptional nation.”
“Listening to the suffering community does not imply that one party is completely innocent while the other party is completely guilty. Instead, it acknowledges that the the dead body in the street is once again the body of a black male.”
“But you are human and you will make mistakes. You will misjudge. You will yell. You will drink too much. You will hang out with people you shouldn’t. Not all of us can always be Jackie Robinson - not even Jackie Robinson was always Jackie Robinson. But the price of error is higher for you than it is for your countrymen, and so that America might justify itself, the story of a black body’s destruction must always begin with his or her error, real or imagined - with Eric Garner’s anger, with Trayvon Martin’s mythical words (“You are gonna die tonight”), with Sean Bell’s mistake of running with the wrong crowd, with me standing too close to the small-eyed boy pulling out.”
“Part of me thinks that your very vulnerability brings you closer to the meaning of life, just as for others, the quest to believe oneself white divides them from it. The fact is that despite their dreams, their lives are not inviolable. When their own vulnerability becomes real - when the police decide that tactics intended for the ghetto should enjoy wider visage, when their armed society shoots down their children, when nature sends hurricanes against their cities - they are shocked in a way that those of us who were born and bred to understand cause and effect can never be. And I would not have you live like them. You have been cast into a race in which the wind is always at your face and the hounds are always at your heels. And to varying degrees this is true of all life. The difference is that you do not have the privilege of living in ignorance of this essential fact.”
“...most Americans have internalized the espoused cultural values of fairness and justice for all at the same time that they have been breathing the smog of racial biases and stereotypes pervading popular culture...[it leaves] many Whites feeling uneasy, uncomfortable, and even perhaps fearful in the presence of Black people, often without their conscious awareness of these feelings.”
“Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men s hearts Atticus had no case.”
“In Los Angeles from 1937 to 1948, more than one hundred lawsuits sought to enforce restrictions by having African Americans evicted from their homes. In a 1947 case, an African American man was jailed for refusing to move out of a house he’d purchased in violation of a covenant.”
“Spring irises bloom. The caged bird no longer sings— the knee on his throat.”
“Every time somebody does a thing like that to one of us, they say the people who did it were crazy or ignorant. That’s like saying they were drunk. Or constipated. Why isn’t cutting a man’s eyes out, cutting his nuts off, the kind of thing you never get too drunk or ignorant to do? Too crazy to do? Too constipated to do? And more to the point, how come Negroes, the craziest, most ignorant people in America, don’t get that crazy and that ignorant? No. White people are unnatural. As a race they are unnatural. And it takes a strong effort of the will to overcome an unnatural enemy.” “What about the nice ones? Some whites made sacrifices for Negroes. Real sacrifices.” “That just means there are one or two natural ones. But they haven’t been able to stop the killing either. They are outraged, but that doesn’t stop it. They might even speak out, but that doesn’t stop it either. They might even inconvenience themselves, but the killing goes on and on. So will we.”
“My identity might begin with the fact of my race, but it didn t, couldn t, end there. At least that s what I would choose to believe”
“This continued blindness between us can only serve the oppressive system within which we live.”