QuoteProject
Race is a constant factor in American life. Yet reacting to every incident,real or imagined, is crippling, tiring, and ultimately counterproductive.
Condoleezza Rice
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

The quote suggests that acknowledging race is essential, but overreacting to every racial situation can be detrimental.

Condoleezza Rice's quote highlights the reality that race is an inescapable part of American society. However, she argues that constantly responding to every racial incident, whether genuine or perceived, can be exhausting and ultimately unhelpful. It advocates for a more thoughtful approach to addressing race rather than one steeped in emotional reaction.

Themes

RaceReactionLifeAmericanCounterproductive

In practice

Example use cases

During a discussion about social justice at a community meeting.

More from Condoleezza Rice

Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same.
Condoleezza RiceRead
I think my father thought I might be president of the United States. I think he would've been satisfied with secretary of state. I'm a foreign policy person and to have a chance to serve my country as the nation's chief diplomat at a time of peril and consequence, that was enough.
Condoleezza RiceRead
What the United States has done is to be open to people who are fleeing tyranny, who are fleeing danger, but we have done it in a very careful way that has worked for us.
Condoleezza RiceRead
For the United States, supporting international development is more than just an expression of our compassion. It is a vital investment in the free, prosperous, and peaceful international order that fundamentally serves our national interest.
Condoleezza RiceRead
Today's headlines and history's judgment are rarely the same. If you are too attentive to the former, you will most certainly not do the hard work of securing the latter.
Condoleezza RiceRead
Does anybody think these people were just sitting around drinking tea?
Condoleezza RiceRead

Similar quotes

The remarkable insights that science affords us into the intelligible workings of the world cry out for an explanation more profound than that which itself can provide. Religion, if it is to take seriously its claim that the world is the creation of god, must be humble enough to learn from science what that world is actually like. The dialogue between them can only be mutually enriching.
John PolkinghorneRead
Judo should be free as art and science from any external influences, political, national, racial, and financial or any other organized interest. And all things connected with it should be directed to its ultimate object, the benefit of Humanity.
Kano JigoroRead
Faith is indeed intellectual; it involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have only knowledge.
John Gresham MachenRead
There is therefore no reason to put a limit to evolutionary possibility by taking our present organization or status of existence as final. The animal is a laboratory in which Nature has worked out man; man may very well be a laboratory in which she wills to work out superman, to disclose the soul as a divine being, to evolve a divine nature.
Sri AurobindoRead
The worst thing that can happen in a democracy - as well as in an individual's life - is to become cynical about the future and lose hope.
Hillary ClintonRead
[M]en will be free no longer then while they remain virtuous.
Samuel AdamsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.