Dick Gregory Quotes

We are not born knowing how to hate; we are taught how to hate.

Hate is taught; victimhood is taught.

I did get in a few fights in school. Kids threw around anti-Semitic slurs, not knowing necessarily what they meant. It was probably just something they picked up somewhere, as kids do.

Teaching prejudice to a child is itself a form of bullying. You've got to be taught to hate.

Racism springs from the lie that certain human beings are less than fully human. It's a self-centered falsehood that corrupts our minds into believing we are right to treat others as we would not want to be treated.

My childhood began, as everybody's childhood begins, with prejudices. Man finds prejudices beside his cradle, puts them from him a little in the course of his career, and often, alas! takes to them again in his old age.

You've got to be taught to hate and fear.

I think in our society we too often choose the people we associate with based on our own hasty judgments.

You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught!

Racism is a form of hate. We pass it on to our young people. When we do that, we are robbing children of their innocence.

A child comes to see his father play, have fun, make people happy, and what does he see? He sees people booing his father for being black. They make monkey noises. They throw bananas at his teammates and all that.

I haven't experienced a lot of prejudice in my life, but I'm not naive to what goes on in the world.

Our babies know nothing about hate or racism. But soon they begin to learn - and only from us.

I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.

Prejudices are not easily got rid of as an old coat which is no longer thought of.

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

Ethnic stereotypes are boring and stressful and sometimes criminal. It's just not a good way to think. It's non-thinking. It's stupid and destructive.

Prejudices are what fools use for reason.

I think most people are more susceptible to prejudice than to reason.

If bigots behave like bigots, it's not a huge surprise.

Bigotry and judgment are the height of insecurity.

Prejudice is a learned trait. You're not born prejudiced; you're taught it.

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.

A child from the age of 2 or 3 absorbs what is in the environment and what generates hatred for anyone perceived to be different.

The worst moment in my life was when I was seven years old and I discovered that there was a thing such as racism. You don't know you're different until someone lets you know.