Quotes on White

'White America' is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies.

If you are attempting to study American history, and you don't understand the force of white supremacy, you fundamentally misunderstand America.

I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me.

There's a lot of Americans, black and white, who think that we've arrived where we need to be and nothing else needs to be done and affirmative action needs to be dismantled.

You are, in fact, stigmatized as a racist, because, after all, you have know acknowledged that your nation practiced racism explicitly for four centuries. And, now, since the '60s, white Americans have been grappling with the stigma, trying prove that they are not racist, to prove the negative.

Black women usually don't get the luxury of faking their way through life and still succeeding, but when a white guy does it, he may even get to be the president of the United States.

Once my school was integrated, and I was there with white kids and a few black kids, it really didn't matter to us what we looked like.

The people I passed every morning as I walked up the school's steps were full of hate. They were white, but so was my teacher, who couldn't have been more different from them. She was one of the most loving people I had ever known.

There are all kinds of monuments to adults - usually dead and usually white. But we don't often lift up the extraordinary work of children.

I had never seen a white teacher before, but Mrs. Henry was the nicest teacher I ever had.

Whether it is a garden gnome, the sound of Bing Crosby launching into 'White Christmas', the blinking innocent eyes of Bambi or the words of Patience Strong, the kitsch phenomenon is there as strong and recognisable as your mother's face. You seldom if ever have the question, whether this is kitsch or not. If you think it might be, then it is.

The question that white people need to ask ourselves is not if we were shaped by the forces of racism, but how.

One of the things I try to work with white people on is letting go of our criteria about how people of color give us feedback. We have to build our stamina to just be humble and bear witness to the pain we've caused.

Until white people understand that racism is embedded in everything, including our consciousness and socialisation, then we cannot go forward.

There are infinite shades of grey. Writing often appears so black and white.

In elite, primarily white institutions, there are many blacks who have white wives. So much so that sometimes there is almost the assumption that I would be married to a white woman.

He told us he was going to take crime out of the streets. He did. He took it into the damn White House.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

Cinema is a little over 100 years old, and a lot of what we do is built around film emulsion. Those things were calibrated for white skin. We've always placed powder on skin to dull the light. But my memory of growing up in Miami is this moist, beautiful black skin.

I'm trying to get people to see that we are our brother's keeper. Red, white, black, brown or yellow, rich or poor, we all have the blues.

If, in 2014, we're still making 'white savior movies,' then it's just lazy and unfortunate. We've grown up as a country, and cinema should be able to reflect what's true. And what's true is that black people are the center of their own lives and should tell their own stories from their own perspectives.