Josephine Baker Quotes

I ran away from home. I ran away from St. Louis, and then I ran away from the United States of America, because of that terror of discrimination, that horrible beast which paralyzes one's very soul and body.

It's not anthrax or terrorism or AIDS that is the worst ill in our world: The most horrible disease in the world is hate.

The two things I feared as a boy most were rattlesnakes and white people.

There's a lot of hate in the world.

But when I was doing the KKK I had constant nightmares of being exposed as a Jew and lynched by the Klan.

Even if I don't always behave as I should, this still doesn't explain why so many people have something against me. But you know how it is. A lot of people vent themselves by coming to the stadium to yell at me. I hope it's not racism. I tell myself that it's not racism; it's because I'm tough, and I repeat this to myself.

Everybody's scared for their ass. There aren't too many people ready to die for racism. They'll kill for racism but they won't die for racism.

Bigotry murders religion to frighten fools with her ghost.

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.

Intolerance has been the curse of our country.

I think all Nazis didn't see themselves as bad people. I've never met a racist yet who thought he was a racist. Or an anti-Semite who thought they were anti-Semitic.

Racism and injustice and violence sweep our world, bringing a tragic harvest of heartache and death.

I have never been on the receiving end of a hate crime, or even a disparaging remark to my face.

Violence and racism are bad. Whenever they occur they are to be condemned and we should not turn a blind eye to them.

Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood.

In all its myriad manifestations, the language of anti-Semitism through the ages is a dictionary of non-sequiturs and antonyms, a thesaurus of illogic and inconsistency.

I figure if people don't want to make the distinction between a Muslim and a terrorist, then why should I make a distinction between good scared white people and racists?

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

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

The Holocaust illustrates the consequences of prejudice, racism and stereotyping on a society. It forces us to examine the responsibilities of citizenship and confront the powerful ramifications of indifference and inaction.

And I think all Nazis didn't see themselves as bad people. I've never met a racist yet who thought he was a racist. Or an anti-Semite who thought they were anti-Semitic.

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.

In any society, fanatics who hate don't hate only me - they hate you, too. They hate everybody.

Xenophobia is not what this country stands for but it is what it is built on.

I will kill every Jew, Catholic and Negro.