Octavia E. Butler Quotes

Whether it is tribalism, racism, xenophobia, or anti-Muslim backlash we're talking about, we spend so much time and energy fighting ways to divide ourselves from others.

The law of dislike for the unlike will always prevail…unlike is normally situated at a safe distance.

Othering people is something that humans have done for ever.

There is a national climate here. We're seeing a rise in hate speech, in intolerance, in racism, in division.

The saddest part of the human race is we're obsessed with this idea of 'us and them,' which is really a no-win situation, whether it's racial, cultural, religious or political.

You'd never know that listening to people in the UN but tribalism is the father of racism.

No corner of the world is free from group scorn.

No one needs to be reminded of racism in soccer: the xenophobia, the nativism and, yes, nationalism.

You've got to be taught to hate and fear.

We represent the majority of the people in Alabama who hate niggerism, Catholicism, Judaism, and all the isms of the whole world.

No British soldier is to have any social intercourse with any Jew … Regard the Jews with hatred and contempt.

I wanted to do away with these divisions—here German, there Jews.

Religious-based and ethnic-based schools act as points of division in society, often breeding prejudice and fear …

We truly forget how bigoted America was in the 1930's.

Even one Serb in our parliament is too much

I must confess that when I see anyone with an Obama bumper sticker I recognize them as a threat to the gene pool.

If you think about it, there's not a religious group, there's not a nationalistic group, there's not a tribe, there is no grouping of people to my knowledge, of any consequence, who have not, at one or another time, been the object of hatred, racism, or who has not had people against them just because they were them.

Even as my father grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, signs told him: 'No Irish Need Apply.'

My grandmother, when she was young, would've walked past shops where some folks had out a sign that said, 'No Mexicans or dogs allowed.'

Nobody wants to be seen with a bigot.

'Those people' is a bad word.

Ageism is a variation of racism or sexism, all the other isms.

I went through kindergarten through 12th grade, college, law school and four years of active duty in the U.S. Army and I never once experienced anti-Semitism - until I came to the U.S. House of Representatives.

Muslims remain the most convenient target for prejudice in a city like Delhi, which is far more ghettoized than Bombay or Bangalore, for example.

Racism seduces us with its desire to categorize, shutting out the living and breathing and 'different' world all around us.