365 Quotes About Race-relations

And America, too, is a delusion, the grandest one of all. The white race believes--believes with all its heart--that it is their right to take the land. To kill Indians. Make war. Enslave their brothers. This nation shouldn't exist, if there is any justice in the world, for its foundations are murder, theft, and cruelty. Yet here we are.

This is the basis, and I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the right of my people, who are still second-class citizens in this United States of America

For, you see, he had found his center, his own center, inside him: and it showed. He wasn’t anybody’s nigger. And that’s a crime, in this fucking free country. You’re suppose to be somebody’s nigger. And if you’re nobody’s nigger, you’re a bad nigger: and that’s what the cops decided when Fonny moved downtown.

A friend argues that Americans battle between the "historical self" and the "self self." By this she means you mostly interact as friends with mutual interest and, for the most part, compatible personalities; however, sometimes your historical selves, her white self and your black self, or your white self and her black self, arrive with the full force of your American positioning.

this country might havebeen a pio neer landonce.but. there ain’tno mo indians blowingcuster’s mind with a differentimage of america. this countrymight have needed shoot/outs/daily/ once. but. there ain’tno mo real/white/ allamerican bad/guys.just. u & me. blk/and un/armed.this country might havebeen a pion eer land. once. and it still is.check out the fallinggun/shells on our blk/tomorrows.

The rest of the world points an angry finger at the South. The rest of the world sees the cinders only in the eyes of southerners. The rest of the world refuses to see the soot in its own eyes.The South, in attitude and in effect, is probably not much worse than the North--only in degree and display. It's simply that the South has always been honest about its hatred and its prejudice. Northern intolerance has been subtle, therefore more pernicious and snaring.

Perhaps in a way, then, the kindly old South is responsible for the violent present we have inherited. Since the founding of the republic the South has dictated and defined us. Perhaps the South, more even than the wild wild West, more in fact than any other region, is responsible for who we are as a people and as a nation. Since the very beginning the South has compromised us.

When I got off the train back home, I saw the WHITE and COLORED signs that had been there all along, as it it was the first time.

I don't know which hurt more: his rejection, his punch, or my own elder siblings laughing at my pain.