Racial Equality Quotes

“The Nazis are not justified by saying,

Don't you know that there is more than just the issue of the Jews? The issues are more complex than that! What of the poor in this country, who cannot afford housing? What about the sick and malnourished? Don't you care about these people? Don't you claim to be a follower of Jesus?!

Supporting a murderous political agenda with such an argument is tragic!

And what do we know about Obama? He is the single most anti-life proponent that has ever run for the office of president.”
― Joseph Bayly

“If origin defines race, then we are all Africans – we are all black.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“In the biological sense, race does not exist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“He ain't gonna live long, child. He's crazy. He thinks the n***ers's equal to the white man.”
― James McBride, The Good Lord Bird

“The civil rights movement is evolving from a protest movement into a full-fledged social movement--an evolution calling its very name into question. It is now concerned not merely with removing the barriers to full opportunity but with achieving the fact of equality. From sit-ins and Freedom Rides we have gone into rent strikes, boycotts, community organization, and political action. As a consequence of this natural evolution, the Negro today finds himself stymied by obstacles of far greater magnitude than the legal barriers he was attacking before: automation, urban decay, de facto school segregation. These are problems which, while conditioned by Jim Crow, do not vanish upon its demise. They are more deeply rooted in our socioeconomic order; they are the result of the total society's failure to meet not only the Negro's needs but human needs generally.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“We would often lead workshops in offices that were 95-100% white, and yet the participants would bitterly complain about Affirmative Action. This would unnerve me as I looked around these rooms and saw only white people. Clearly these white people were employed - we were in their workplace, after all. There were no people of color here, yet white people were making enraged claims that people of color were taking their jobs. This outrage was not based in any racial reality, yet obviously the emotion was real. I began to wonder how we managed to maintain that reality - how could we not see how white the workplace and its leadership was, at the very moment that we were complaining about not being able to get jobs because people of color would be hired over "us"? How were we, as white people, able to enjoy so much racial privilege and dominance in the workplace, yet believe so deeply that racism had changed direction to now victimize us?”
― Robin DiAngelo

“Narratives of racial exceptionality obscure the reality of ongoing institutional white control while reinforcing ideologies of individualism and meritocracy. They also do whites a disservice by obscuring the white allies behind the scenes who worked hard and long to open the field. These allies could serve as much-needed role models for other whites.”
― Robin DiAngelo, What Does It Mean to Be White?: Developing White Racial Literacy

“To be an American is to be accosted by bigotry and enmity for the rights that you were told to appreciate.”
― Tennessee West

“We want to remember that America is at its best when it’s struggling to live up to its stated ideals.”
― Lonnie Bunch

“It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“What's the thing, I ask her, that would make people want to live together?
People have to want it, that's all.”
― Jacqueline Woodson, Brown Girl Dreaming

“If not as a true human, let me tell you as a Biologist, color of the skin does not define an individual’s intelligence – it does not define an individual’s ambitions - it does not define an individual’s dreams – and above all, it does not define an individual’s character.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“Call up the ever-pure, the effulgent and the ever-radiant character of true humanism in yourself and in others, and no racism shall have the power to thrive in such society even for a few seconds.”
― Abhijit Naskar, We Are All Black: A Treatise on Racism

“We are accountable to the next generation. We have to give the next generation a world that inspires them - a place of gender and racial equality.”
― Avijeet Das

“The Negro struggle has hardly run its course; and it will not stop moving until it has been utterly defeated or won substantial equality. But I fail to see how the movement can be victorious in the absence of radical programs for full employment, the abolition of slums, the reconstruction of our educational system, new definitions of work and leisure. Adding up the cost of such programs, we can only conclude that we are talking about a refashioning of our political economy.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“The needs of the black community for adequate jobs, housing, and education can be met only by developing a political strategy that will attract a majority of Americans to a program for social change. There are whites who are unemployed and white workers whose real income is steadily decreasing as the cost of living rises. Both these groups share with blacks the desire for increased and upgraded employment opportunities. Let us build a movement with them. there are whites living in substandard housing and paying exorbitant rents. Their children attend schools that are overcrowded and understaffed. They share with blacks the desire for massively funded programs of housing and education. Let us build a movement with them also. And there are those more affluent whites of liberal persuasion who sincerely desire social justice. They too should be our allies.

These are positive points around which a political majority can be built. Such a strategy is the only means by which black people will achieve social and economic equality within the context of contemporary American society.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“The truth about the situation of the Negro today is that there are powerful forces, composed largely of the corporate elite and Southern conservatives, which will resist any change in the economic or racial structure of this country that might cut into their resources or challenge their status; and such is precisely what any program genuinely geared to improve his lot must do. Moreover, these forces today are not merely resisting change. With their representative Richard Nixon in the White House, they are engaged in an assault on the advances made during the past decade. It has been Nixon's tragic and irresponsible choice to play at the politics of race—not, to be sure, with the primitive demagoguery of a "Pitchfork Ben" Tillman, say, but nevertheless with the same intent of building a political majority on the basis of white hostility to blacks. So far he has been unsuccessful, but the potential for the emergence of such a reactionary majority does exist, especially if the turbulence and racial polarization which we have recently experienced persist.

What is needed, therefore, is not only a program that would effect some fundamental change in the distribution of America's resources for those in the greatest need of them but a political majority that will support such a program as well. In other words, nothing less than a program truly, not merely verbally, radical in scope would be adequate to meet the present crisis; and nothing less than a politically constituted majority, outnumbering the conservative forces, would be adequate to carry it through.”
― Bayard Rustin, Down the Line: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin

“...We are long overdue for an update to the empirical scientific evidence
that, despite our racial differences, demonstrates humankind’s overarching
shared foundations as biological, cultural, and social beings. Awareness
of the fascinating research unfolding in the arena of nature–nurture and the
human condition promises to be a step in that direction.”
― Alondra Oubré, Science in Black and White: How Biology and Environment Shape Our Racial Divide

“Yes, outwardly racist systems of oppression like chattel slavery, apartheid, and racial discrimination in employment have been made illegal. But the subtle and overt discrimination, marginalization, abuse, and killing of BIPOC in white-dominated communities continues even today because white supremacy continues to be the dominant paradigm under which white societies operate.”
― Layla F. Saad, Me and White Supremacy / Natives Race and Class in the Ruins of Empire

“Over the years, Mother Dear taught me by example, that racism is a disease of the mind and that there is only one race — the human race. She taught me that race was a man-made concept. She made it clear that striving for racial equality is an expression of our humanity. She would say, “The soul has no race, no color, and no bias.” She showed me by example, how to treat and honor others as I wished to be treated: With respect, regardless of cultural or religious differences.”
― Donna Maltz, Living Like The Future Matters: The Evolution of a Soil to Soul Entrepreneur

“White supremacists should imagine if the reverse was the case. You hate black people but came to their land, distorted their development, culture, way of life, took their resources, and carted millions of them to work for you in Europe as your slaves. And yet, you still hating on them because they are still surviving.

What would the plot twist look like?”
― Olawale Daniel

“I ain't your nigger, I am your trigger - trigger for revolution whenever there is oppression - trigger for ascension whenever there is assumption - trigger for assimilation whenever there is discrimination.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulldozer on Duty

“Reformists and Capacianists definitely believe in their own ideologies. I mean, we even made names for those movements. However, both of us— and yes, I admit that us Reformists do it, too—have not directed our potentials to acknowledge one another’s capabilities. I swear, I will try to change the name Reformation, and hopefully, Capacianists won’t replicate the same intolerance we showed them in the past. You know what? I wouldn’t be surprised if the person who suggested the enforcement of African education bans and the Triangular Slave Trade to the Museum of Recreation did this because of intolerance. I mean, in 2999, rights for people of color were so intense that gaining rights for people of color meant diminishing the rights of Caucasians! Everyone had this preconceived notion that Caucasians were racists, and they even arrested Caucasians simply by alleging that they were being racist without even giving them a fair trial, which is like the equivalent of wrongfully accusing Black people of being criminals. I am saying this as a person of color! If only Reformists will tolerate Capacianists, Capacianists will tolerate Reformists, and people of all races and colors will tolerate one another!”
― Lucy Carter, The Reformation

“Reparations can make up for stolen wages, but not stolen dignity and stolen lives.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Heart Force One: Need No Gun to Defend Society