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There is a strange kind of tragic enigma associated with the problem of racism. No one, or almost no one, wishes to see themselves as racist; still racism persists, real and tenacious.
In all manifestations of racism from the mildest to the most severe, what is being denied is the possibility that the racializers and the racialized can coexist in the same society, except perhaps on the basis of domination and subordination.
GEORGE M. FREDRICKSON, Racism: A Short History
Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.
Excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism.
OPRAH WINFREY, Brian Lanker's I Dream a World
Racism has been an integral component of American culture since its founding upon the genocide of Native Americans, and the forced slavery of Africans and Afro-Americans.
VINCENT F. ROCCHIO, Reel Racism
Racism is when you have laws set up, systematically put in a way to keep people from advancing, to stop the advancement of a people. Black people have never had the power to enforce racism, and so this is something that white America is going to have to work out themselves. If they decide they want to stop it, curtail it, or to do the right thing ... then it will be done, but not until then.
SPIKE LEE, interview, 1990
If we are to open employment opportunities in this country for members of all races and creeds, then the Federal Government must set an example … I am not going to promise a Cabinet post or any other post to any race or ethnic group. That is racism in reverse at its worst. So I do not promise to consider race or religion in my appointments if I am successful. I promise only that I will not consider them.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, speech, Oct. 17, 1960
Even the most blatant bigots, when made aware of their racism, can change.
CHARLES R. RIDLEY, Overcoming Unintentional Racism in Counseling and Therapy
There aren’t too many people ready to die for racism. They’ll kill for racism but they won’t die for racism.
FLORYNCE R. KENNEDY, Hay Mills' This Little Light of Mine
Racism does not limit itself to biology or economics or psychology or metaphysics; it attacks along many fronts and in many forms, deploying whatever is at hand, and even what is not, inventing when the need arises.
Whatever their intentions ... eighteenth-century ethnologists opened the way to a secular or scientific racism by considering human beings part of the animal kingdom rather than by viewing them in biblical terms as children of God endowed with spiritual capacities denied to other creatures.
GEORGE M. FREDRICKSON, Racism: A Short History
Racism is something that people can transcend through friendship.
VINCENT F. ROCCHIO, Reel Racism
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