Ian Harding Quotes

Just because I grew up a white guy in America doesn't mean that's the music of my life.

Only white men have the luxury of ignoring race.

Well, I think that I have a complicated relationship with whiteness because oftentimes, I pass as white, and I recognize that. I would be disingenuous to pretend that I don't pass as white.

Nothing about being white describes who I am.

I didn't really understand racism because I grew up in an all-black society, so I didn't see how it was possible not to like me!

You can't get much whiter than me.

I am Ecuadorian but people felt so safe passing me off as a skinny, blue-eyed white girl.

Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition of what a black person is. I'm mixed, yes, but in the world I'm defined as black before I'm defined white. I've never been called white.

Whatever that thing is that white people like in blacks, I don't have it. Maybe it's my arrogance or my self-assurance or the way I carry myself, but whatever it is, I don't have it.

I wasn't always black... there was this freckle, and it got bigger and bigger.

For the majority of the time, I may as well have been just a really tan white kid. You know, I may as well have just been, like, a fat kid.

White people are potential humans - they haven't evolved yet.

There was a while when I was feeling like, 'Damn, if I'd just been born black, I would not have to go through all this'.

People are so confused about race and hip-hop that people didn't even consider the Beastie Boys one of the greatest rap groups of all time because they were white.

I'm black, I don't feel burdened by it and I don't think it's a huge responsibility. It's part of who I am. It does not define me.

The American paradigm of race requires that there be an ‘other’ - and the other is Black people. That's what makes white people, white.

I honestly thought that since I didn't associate myself with any people or groups who were outwardly racist, and I didn't act in a way that struck me as racist, that this meant that I myself was not a racist, and that racism wasn't a huge issue.

The most glaring aspect of white privilege is that when someone is described neutrally - without indicating color or ethnicity - more often than not, people will assume that the person is white. That assumption indicates an uncomfortable truth: in our society, whiteness determines humanity.

People didn't seem able to consider that maybe both were true. OK, I was born to white parents, but maybe I had an authentic black identity.

I definitely am not white.

I think that unlearning race for black people is more along the lines of seriously saying blackness isn't real, race isn't real.

White people have basically been encouraged for most of recent history in America to think of themselves as outside of race. White people do have race. They need to understand how their race has been constructed as artificially as everybody else's.

While I was able to pass as white as soon as I came to America, this was not really possible while I was growing up, as it was pretty obvious that I wasn't 'all German.' So my privilege was that in America, I could conveniently withhold one of my bloodlines and avoid racism and discrimination. That is not a privilege most people of color have.

White people are very wily when it comes to race. We will do everything that we can to get out from under the idea of race.

Most white people cannot answer the question, 'What does it mean to be white?' with any depth or complexity.