Barack Obama Quotes

A race-transcendent politics is most likely to succeed when the white community takes responsibility for overcoming its racism, not when the black community decides to forget it.

One of the things that will decline over time is the demand that the society or the government bring forth a particularized racial remedy based on a history of deprivation. That will be even more difficult to do in the future.

White privilege allows a certain kind of leisure that can be deployed by white people of advantage toward our restoration. That's all true and good. But it also suggests that there is an individual approach to the issues that many of these white people have taken up as a recognition of their tie to and responsibility for some of the inequities that exist. And I don't think it has to be an either-or. I think it has to be a bifocal approach.

I thought our community should have a deep dialogue to make black America better. I believe if we make black America better, we make all of America better.

For us, #BlackLivesMatter is really a re-humanization project. It's a way for us to love each other again, to love ourselves, and to project that love into the world so that we can transform it.

We are clear that all lives matter, but we live in a world where that's not actually happening in practice. So if we want to get to the place where all lives matter, then we have to make sure that black lives matter, too.

The ultimate solution to the race problem lies in the willingness of men to obey the unenforceable.

If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial bribes, join hands with people of all colors who are not content to wait for change to trickle down, and say to those who would stand in our way: Accept all of us or none.

I think black Americans expect too much from individual black Americans in terms of changing the status quo.

I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.

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.

My number one priority is to save the Black man.

I don't know that white people need to be 'allies' so much as understand that any black struggle in America is ultimately a struggle for the large country. 'Ally' presumes a kind of distance that I am not sure exists.

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.

Black Lives Matter is our call to action. It is a tool to reimagine a world where black people are free to exist, free to live. It is a tool for our allies to show up differently for us.

Reparative justice is not about black people standing on the street corners expecting charities from white folks. This is about building of bridges across lines of moral justice.

We actually know that all lives do matter. And we believe it is so much so that we had to create Black Lives Matter.

Whether or not you call it Black Lives Matter, whether or not you put a hashtag in front of it, whether or not you call it the Movement for Black Lives, all of that is irrelevant. Because there was resistance before Black Lives Matter, and there will be resistance after Black Lives Matter.

Our racial past and future is something that we Americans must address.

I am not antiwhite, because I understand that white people, like black ones, are victims of a racist society. They are products of their time and place.

I think "post-racial" is a dangerous trap. You can fall into complacency and give your complicity a much more dangerous character.

I think there is a commitment on the part of the White House to racial justice in this country, and no ambiguity.

When I care about black liberation, it is because I care about white liberation.

Race, redemption and healing - that's my thing.

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality.