Walter Mosley Quotes

We've been conditioned to be incredibly avoidant. 'I'm afraid I'll be called a racist if I say something wrong,' is the familiar retort. Well, okay, that's scary and difficult, but staying silent, avoiding the issue, doesn't mean that racism goes away.

It's a real uphill challenge to battle the white-guyness.

I don't think the job of the antiracist is to convert the far-out heathen racist, or give them their 'come to Jesus' moment, as it's called. They'll either have those or they won't, and usually, when they have them, it's not because of something someone said per se; it's because of some life crisis that makes them rethink.

I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be “accepted” by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on the planet.

We cannot just be nonracist. We really do need to be antiracist.

Racial bias does exist, and until we can all admit its existence and become introspective as to whether our own personal biases are impacting how we deal with others, there will be no change.

We're all biased, right, in many different ways - politically, religiously, ideologically, the way our family raised us - and that's fine. Nobody wants to live in a world where everybody thinks exactly the same. The key, though, is to try to figure out where your biases are holding you back from solving problems.

If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.

Racism is something that is taught. We, as a people, need to work to get past that.

I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.

For generations, black children have been brought up to have a critical race consciousness, a framework for dealing with prejudice and discrimination, which helps inoculate them against the spiritual toxins they will almost certainly encounter as they come of age in our society.

All racism is wrong, and denying that it exists does not make it go away.

A fundamental but very challenging part of my work is moving white people from an individual understanding of racism - i.e. only some people are racist and those people are bad - to a structural understanding.

I like to look at it as things and people and whole society in general being uneducated about facts. There are a lot of stereotypes. But I don't see color, I don't see race.

White supremacy is a sin. Neo-Nazism is a sin.

I have found that the only way to give feedback without triggering white fragility is not to give it at all.

Sadly, I've learnt that prejudice still exists in parts of the entertainment industry - I did an interview with a magazine once, and the journalist quite openly said they wouldn't put a black person on the front cover because the magazine wouldn't sell.

I grew up in a predominantly white community - Hinsdale, Illinois - and given that, I feel blessed because I could still count my experiences with blatant racism on two hands. I thought racism was the substitute teacher picking on you because she assumes that you're a delinquent, and she doesn't know you have the highest score in the class.

In the real world, there's probably nothing more horrifying than racism. Living racism is a horrifying experience. And then, having to normalize it and internalize it.

You have to be an anti-racist to not be racist. Because it's just a cultural tide that will pull you into it if you're not swimming against it.

I'm not a docile, complacent person when it comes to racial aggressions.

I'm very light, so some people don't really know that I'm black. I've been in situations where people will say something kind of racist, and I'll step in, and they'll be like, 'Oh, well, you're light.' That still doesn't cut it, buddy.

Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.

You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and gives a name to them, and explains why it is like this.

You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about.