Tavis Smiley 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.

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.

I think, the argument sometimes that I've had with folks who are much more interested in sort of race-specific programs is less an argument about what is practically achievable and sometimes maybe more an argument of "We want society to see what's happened, and internalize it, and answer it in demonstrable ways." And those impulses I very much understand.

We believe that when you make Black America better - you make all of America better.

As far as I'm concerned, and this is a big theme of mine, I'm not interested in white people loving me. It's an unrealistic expectation. Black people don't love anybody but themselves.

As part of the realization of the aim to eradicate racism in our country, we must strive to create and strengthen a black capitalist class… because we come from among the black oppressed, many among us feel embarrassed to state this goal as nakedly as we should.

My number one priority is to save the Black man.

We want Black power.

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.

I think #BlackLivesMatter is a huge campaign that is important and integral to our advancement as a people.

Saying 'black lives matter' both literally and figuratively restores people's dignity.

In 2013, I helped create a black-centered political will- and movement-building project called #BlackLivesMatter.

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.

I am so proud to be black. I am, nevertheless, tired of the oppression. We need to develop and support a cohesive black agenda. We need to do what leaders have suggested since slavery. We need to recognize that while we are not monolithic, there is power in embracing a common agenda.

Black people, we are fully deserving of the room and space to fully express our humanity. This is what Black Lives Matter is truly about.

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.

Racial problems can't be easily reconciled with a pat account about racism and discrimination that lets us sort of relax into saying when we finally get this right, when we get rid of racism, when we reach the post-racial society, everything is going to be okay. Well, no, because along the way here, as we've not yet been in this racial nirvana, facts on the ground have been created.

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

I feel that there has been progress made since I was a boy on matters of race, but we have a long way to go.

Rosewood is what Americans did to Americans. We have to hold the mirror up... and look at ourselves. Sometimes that's an ugly sight. And sometimes you have to go through that pain - both black America and white America - so we can finally find some racial harmony.

I think Black people need to take self-esteem seriously.

White society will not listen to preaching. They will not listen to their liberals. Liberalism has not grown within white society, and we blacks cannot stand idly by watching the situation. We can only generate a response from white society when we, as blacks, speak with a black voice and say what we want. Now has come the time when we, as blacks, must articulate what we want, and put it across to the white man, and from a position of strength.

Attempting to heal the wounds of the past by racial discrimination today undermines a future of racial reconciliation.

The world has made being black a crime .... I hope to make it a virtue.