Malcolm X Quotes

I was wowed by Margo Jefferson's memoir, Negroland, which is about growing up black and privileged in Chicago in the fifties and sixties. It was a window into an alien world. Obviously, I'm not black, but what was really alien to me was her family's focus on respectability. I was never taught when to wear white gloves, what length skirt is appropriate.

Jesse Jackson has to get back to "I am somebody" instead of "I am some color."

I think it's extremely important to challenge white brothers and sisters and think more systematically and strategically about the whiteness that they possess.

I asked her if I was black or white. She replied "You are a human being. Educate yourself or you'll be a nobody!

When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

Until the image of the black man in the mind of the black man has been changed, there will always be delinquency, parental and juvenile. The idea is not to change the attitude of the white man to the black man but to change the attitude of the black man to himself.

Growing up, I played hockey because I loved playing it. I didn't view myself in minor hockey as a Black hockey player, but I was also aware that I was.

Most white people cannot answer the question, 'What does it mean to be white?' with any depth or complexity.

I don't think of myself as being colored but of being Australian.

The problem with most liberals - myself included - is we tend to think we're post-racial: that we've got a handle on things because we're not racists.

I'm not anti-anything. I'm not anti-Jew or Gentile, I'm not anti-white, but I am pro-black. I am pro my people. And I love us so much that it gets on my nerves when we do stupid things.

White people whom I have met, who have accepted Islam, they don't regard themselves as white but as human beings.

Whatever white people do not know about Negroes reveals, precisely and inexorably, what they do not know about themselves.

I don't think that the "freedom movement" is a racist movement as such. But it's a virulent example of identity politics. "Whiteness" is part of the identity, but not the most important part.

The American idea of racial progress is measured by how fast I become white.

I've often been a little concerned by people who say they are color-blind, people who claim, in some ways, not to be aware of race, and I hope that those who will be looking for a vision of the future will be a little more honest, and say race actually does matter.

I think I've been writing black poems all along, wearing my white mask. I'm always the victim ... but no longer!

The consequences of whiteness are particularly lethal right now. And the ignorance about it, especially on the part of white people themselves, makes them unavoidably complicit in a system that has to be unmasked, unveiled, undressed in order to be reformed or destroyed.

I think of the described dynamics as a fluid negotiation. I don't think these specific interactions can happen to the black or brown body without the white body. And there are ways in which, if you say, "Oh, this happened to me," then the white body can say, "Well, it happened to her and it has nothing to do with me." But if it says "you," that you is an apparent part of the encounter.

Growing up in America, I never really appreciated my culture. I knew what being Hispanic was, but I thought that since I didn't look Hispanic, I was white.

Thoughtful white people know they are inferior to black people.

If one will always have to feel white first, and African second, it would be better not to stay on in Africa

I realize that I'm black, but I like to be viewed as a person, and that's everybody's wish... I try to be a role model for black kids, white kids, yellow kids, green kids. This is what I felt was good about my personality.

To solve the new century's mounting social and environmental problems, people of color activist and white activists need to be able to join forces. But all too often, the unconscious racism of white activists stands in the way of any effective, worthwhile collaboration. The Challenging White Supremacy Workshop is the most powerful tool that I have seen for removing the barriers to true partnerships between people of color and white folks. If the CWS trainings were mandatory for all white activists, the progressive movement in the United States would be unstoppable.

When I walk out into the street or go to the toilet, I don't think of myself as being black. Of course, other people think of me as black when I walk into a pub. Obviously being black is a part of me.