Tao Lin Quotes

Santa Claus was white and everything bad was black. The little ugly duckling was the black duck, and the black cat was the bad luck. And if I threaten you, I'm going to blackmail you.I said, 'Momma, why don't they call it 'whitemail'? They lie too.'

I remember classes in college where the professor was espousing certain theories about how blacks were inherently less intelligent. But I learned a long time ago to give people the benefit of the doubt, not to assume that somebody was reacting to you because of race.

I am just mystified by these people telling me I would think Obama was doing a great job if his skin contained less melanin.

I don't know what to say about Asians. I think everyone is "racist," to differing degrees, in that everyone's brain will automatically associate information with other information, based on the information they are looking at (for example skin color, bone structure), but I think focusing on race in any manner that isn't neutral or self-aware probably increases racism.

I remember when I was a kid being called names, including the 'n' word. The first time that happened, it really bothered me. But most of the people I dealt with were all white. Most of my close friends were white.

I think the president is a racist.

I think that one of the positions we have taken around the question of race, is that we already know. We know. We know. We know. And so we don't need to look at it again. And yet everybody is still upset. Everybody is still being driven by their outrageous imagination to the point of killing people because they feel that a black man in front of them is a demon, or the Incredible Hulk.

If you're getting harassed, it's not helpful to know that racism has generally declined in America, when you're still experiencing it. That is a reality that we're still vulnerable to.

Stop saying you're not racist because you have a friend that's black. That's like saying you're not a pedophile because you have a friend that's a kid.

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

I got pictures of us and they would draw big red rings around us and tell what they thought of us. I got a letter said, "I have been shot three times throught the heart. I hope I see your second act." But this white man who wants to stay white, and to think for the Negro, he is not only destroying the Negro, he is destroying himself, because a house divided against itself cannot stand and that same thing applies to America.

Racism is like high blood pressure—the person who has it doesn’t know he has it until he drops over with a God damned stroke. There are no symptoms of racism. The victim of racism is in a much better position to tell you whether or not you’re a racist than you are.

I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did.

When I countered that Archie Bunker didn't have to put down a race of people to say that, he replied, 'and you're the dumbest white kid I've ever met.'

I never have a problem with being black. I have a problem with the easy association of what that means to some people.

For instance, if you're a black guy and you got pulled over, and you didn't know that any other black men were being pulled over, you would constantly in the back of your head be thinking, "What did I do?" rather than, "I didn't do anything, these are just the conditions I live under."

Labels applied to people of any race are inherently offensive.

Denying racism is the new racism.

We live in a really racist culture and it's got to be addressed.

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

The only reason race matters is because of racism.

Lots of white people think black people are stupid. They are stupid themselves for thinking so, but regulation will not make them smarter.

Some negroes lie, some are immoral, some negro men are not be trusted around women - black and white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men.