“Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.”
“I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”
“Whoever debases others is debasing himself.”
“The world is what it is; men who are nothing, who allow themselves to become nothing, have no place in it.”
“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. ”
“The genius of the current caste system, and what most distinguishes it from its predecessors, is that it appears voluntary. People choose to commit crimes, and that s why they are locked up or locked out, we are told. This feature makes the politics of responsibility particularly tempting, as it appears the system can be avoided with good behavior. But herein lies the trap. All people make mistakes. All of us are sinners. All of us are criminals. All of us violate the law at some point in our lives. In fact, if the worst thing you have ever done is speed ten miles over the speed limit on the freeway, you have put yourself and others at more risk of harm than someone smoking marijuana in the privacy of his or her living room. Yet there are people in the United States serving life sentences for first-time drug offenses, something virtually unheard of anywhere else in the world.”
“Concerning non-violence: it is criminal to teach a man not to defend himself when he is the constant victim of brutal attacks.”
“When I was twelve, my parents had two talks with me. One was the usual birds and bees. Well, I didn t really get the usual version. My mom, Lisa, is a registered nurse, and she told me what went where, and what didn t need to go here, there, or any damn where till I m grown. Back then, I doubted anything was going anywhere anyway. While all the other girls sprouted breasts between sixth and seventh grade, my chest was as flat as my back. The other talk was about what to do if a cop stopped me. Momma fussed and told Daddy I was too young for that. He argued that I wasn t too young to get arrested or shot. Starr-Starr, you do whatever they tell you to do, he said. Keep your hands visible. Don t make any sudden moves. Only speak when they speak to you. I knew it must ve been serious. Daddy has the biggest mouth of anybody I know, and if he said to be quiet, I needed to be quiet. I hope somebody had the talk with Khalil.”
“We first crush people to the earth, and then claim the right of trampling on them forever, because they are prostrate.”
“Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.”
“Last time I was down South I walked into this restaurant, and this white waitress came up to me and said: We don t serve colored people here. I said: that s all right, I don t eat colored people. Bring me a whole fried chicken.”
“العنصرية هي الاعتقاد بأن الاختلاف في العنصر يؤدي الي اختلاف السلوك والقدرات”
“When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and whites only signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.”
“The Cold Within Six humans trapped in happenstance In dark and bitter cold, Each one possessed a stick of wood, Or so the story s told. The first woman held hers back For of the faces around the fire, She noticed one was black. The next man looking across the way Saw not one of his church, And couldn t bring himself to give The fire his stick of birch. The third one sat in tattered clothes He gave his coat a hitch, Why should his log be put to use, To warm the idle rich? The rich man just sat back and thought Of the wealth he had in store, And how to keep what he had earned, From the lazy, shiftless poor. The black man s face bespoke revenge As the fire passed from sight, For all he saw in his stick of wood Was a chance to spite the white. The last man of this forlorn group Did naught except for gain, Giving only to those who gave, Was how he played the game. The logs held tight in death s still hands Was proof of human sin, They didn t die from the cold without, They died from the cold within.”
“A vision of cultural homogeneity that seeks to deflect attention away from or even excuse the oppressive, dehumanizing impact of white supremacy on the lives of black people by suggesting black people are racist too indicates that the culture remains ignorant of what racism really is and how it works. It shows that people are in denial. Why is it so difficult for many white folks to understand that racism is oppressive not because white folks have prejudicial feelings about blacks (they could have such feelings and leave us alone) but because it is a system that promotes domination and subjugation?”
“I was so raw from repeated exposure to cruelty that now even the most minor abrasions left a mark.”
“I am opposed to animal welfare campaigns for two reasons. First, if animal use cannot be morally justified, then we ought to be clear about that, and advocate for no use. Although rape and child molestation are ubiquitous, we do not have campaigns for “humane” rape or “humane” child molestation. We condemn it all. We should do the same with respect to animal exploitation. Second, animal welfare reform does not provide significant protection for animal interests. Animals are chattel property; they are economic commodities. Given this status and the reality of markets, the level of protection provided by animal welfare will generally be limited to what promotes efficient exploitation. That is, we will protect animal interests to the extent that it provides an economic benefit.”