Maya Angelou Quotes

People would write me hate letters. How dare I try to represent Hispanics when I was so white? I tried to make them see it was racism.

The world is still very bigoted.

Ageism is as odious as racism and sexism.

Prejudice hasn't changed to this day, not in golf. Maybe in other sports.

Like one of any minority, I have experienced prejudice.

Abortion and racism are both symptoms of a fundamental human error. The error is thinking that when someone stands in the way of our wants, we can justify getting that person out of our lives. Abortion and racism stem from the same poisonous root, selfishness.

Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future and renders the present inaccessible.

Evil is the shadow of angel. Just as there are angels of light, support, guidance, healing and defense, so we have experiences of shadow angels. And we have names for them: racism, sexism, homophobia are all demons - but they're not out there.

If anyone wants to abuse other people for whatever colour, race or creed they are, then it's just stupidness, isn't it?

That's a good thing; that's a damn good thing. We can use that to keep the niggers in their place.

Even here in Boston, we are informed, pride and prejudice have got to such a pitch, that in the very houses erected to the Lord they have built little places for the reception of colored people, where they must sit during meeting, or keep away from the house of God. Hypocrisy could hardly go further than that of preachers who could not see the evils at their door but could send out missionaries to convert the heathen, notwithstanding.

Yes, there is racism. There is discrimination. Mr. Trump may have the most powerful job in the world, but that does not make him a respectful person.

Injustice is either very blatant - you walk down the street and someone calls you a name; you don't get a job because of your gender or your skin color or your sexual preference - but injustice is also very subliminal.

Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms.

Going into a room and saying, 'I'm a black lesbian' - it's a strike against you.

I really hate racism because I saw people denied possibilities.

I'm sick of seeing the immigrants in the hotels and the Italians who sleep in cars. This is the racist country.

Racism seduces us with its desire to categorize, shutting out the living and breathing and 'different' world all around us.

I don't know how racists live with their racism. We need to take the road of love. I don't think folks are born that way; it's learned and taught out of fear.

Throughout college and law school, as well as in my career as a lawyer and police reform advocate, I've faced various toxic combinations of racism, sexism, and homophobia.

It's just amazing that there are so many prejudices even now.

Not everybody is absolutely stupid. Why on earth would I be racist, what would I be trying to achieve?

Discrimination is alive and soaring.

I still find that a kind of stricture of the heart happens when I see any form of bigoted or racist behaviour. I get an actual pain in my heart.

I grew up in the Deep South, where sexism, racism, and homophobia were and still are alive and well. I have early, early memories of words and actions of this type being very painful.