Alicia Garza Quotes

The American imagination has never been able to fully recover from its white-supremacist beginnings.

America was not built on kindness or the Christianity of Christ. It was not built on freedom or liberty. This nation was built on white supremacy.

All racism is wrong, and denying that it exists does not make it go away.

I know I'm breaking a taboo by using the term antiwhite racism, but I do so intentionally, because it's the reality some of our fellow citizens live with, and remaining quiet about it only aggravates their trauma.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

My personal opinion is that you can't be racist towards white people. You can be prejudiced about them, but being prejudiced isn't an illegal act, whereas being racist can be.

Have the colored people done anything to justify the prejudice against them that does exist in the hearts of so many white persons and, generally, of one great political party in this country? Have they done anything to justify it? No, sir.

There will always be that dreadful monster prejudice to do extra battle against because of their color.

The reason people think it's important to be white is that they think it's important not to be black.

Blacks essentially play the race card, when necessary as a counter to white privilege.

Many white Americans resist relinquishing the sense of entitlement skin color has given them throughout our national history.

When you teach black people that they are less beautiful, less moral, less intelligent, and as a result you defer to the white supremacist status quo, you rationalize your accommodation to the status quo, you lose your fire, you become much more tied to producing foliage, what appears to be the case.

We don't realize how much racism has tainted our self-image as human beings.

I think the most harmful belief passed on to me - not always directly - was the belief that whatever I did as a Negro, however much we Negroes achieved, despite the presence of some enlightened whites, white society as a whole enjoyed being racists in the secret core of their being and would never, ever give that up.

Of course I've felt racism.

I think about the history of racism in this country all the time.

I'm not sure that there are days of my life when I'm not confronted with racism. For some, that may seem hyperbolic, but it's true.

I feel like racism's more pronounced in America.

Anti-black racism operates at a society-wide level and colludes in a seamless web of policies, practices, and beliefs to oppress and disempower black communities.

The only difference between me and those other great Yankees is my skin color.

The truth is, no, we don't live in a post-racial state anywhere in America, and this is particularly true in Hollywood.

If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness - just a drop of it - does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America.

I don't think many people understand what racism is. The intellectuals use it like toilet paper; it's something they can use. It's not something they live.

And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, 'love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.