Eric Holder Quotes

I started a lecture series that was inspired by my reporting on race in America. The 'Black in America' series launched on CNN in 2007 as an opportunity to freshen the national conversation on race.

Though race-related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about things racial.

There has been, and there will continue to be, vigorous discussions about race in America. I worry that little will come of these discussions because we aren't addressing what must be done to change the current racial climate.

I do think that people will claim a certain fatigue about talking about race. But I think that even though they do, it's still necessary - completely necessary.

We need to have a more thoughtful, two-sided conversation about racial issues in this country.

I think unless we have an honest conversation about race and identity in this country, we're never going to get anywhere.

As important as the presidency is, that's not the only thing to take a look at in determining the racial health of the United States.

Race in America is not a problem you can go over, or around or under. You've got to go through it.

People feel uncomfortable talking about racial issues out of fear that if they express things, they will be characterized in a way that's not fair. I think that there is still a need for a dialogue about things racial that we've not engaged in.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.

I don't think that the country is ever ready to have the conversation about race.

I think race in America is a huge one. That's something that needs to be confronted, certainly.

I do not claim to be an expert on race in America.

I think there's an awakening now of a realization that we too early congratulated ourselves on the end of racial prejudice and white supremacy. And that was a feeling that we had when I was president, that we had pretty much overcome that problem.

In America right now, the people who talk about race the most are people of color - and if we are going to move the needle forward, it's WHITE people who need to acknowledge their role in racism.

The racial conversation in the States is so multifaceted and multilayered. Obviously it's not always a positive conversation, but it's just so much more detailed than it was when I was growing up in South Africa.

Every single thing in my life is built around race.

I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.

To believe that the United States is post-racial requires an almost incomprehensible inability or unwillingness to stare truth in the face.

The issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect.

In the 'era of colorblindness,' there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we, as a nation, have 'moved beyond' race.

It was definitely during the Obama administration that talking about racism, or calling it out, suddenly seemed taboo. It seemed like talking about race was somehow summoning the evil of racism.

If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed.

Everyone is very aware that, not only do we have a race problem, but it's so pervasive that it affects national and global politics on a scale that I don't think a lot of people imagined.

Obviously, race is the elephant in the room, and we all understand that. Unless it is talked about constantly, it's not going to get better... people have to be made to feel uncomfortable, and especially white people, because we're comfortable. We still have no clue what being born white means.