Kara Walker Quotes

To ignore race and sex is racist and sexist.

Multiculturalism isn't about culture, it's about power.

We'll always be re-examining how we relate to each other in terms of race and gender, in terms of power and access.

Something that happens to me is that I'll write a play specifically from my own experience, and then I'll inevitably be told that I'm being tunnel-visioned about it. People always ask, 'What about that other race? Or discrimination toward those people?'

What I do used to be called 'diversity training,' then 'cultural competency' and now, 'anti-racism.' These terms are really useful for periods of time, but then they get coopted, and people build all this baggage around them, and you have to come up with new terms, or else people won't engage.

This idea of, oh, poor little black person, oh, poor little poor person, oh, poor little woman, oh, poor little indigenous person - everybody's a poor little something! I don't try and please everybody.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

Real equality is immensely difficult to achieve, it needs continual revision and monitoring of distributions. And it does not provide buffers between members, so they are continually colliding or frustrating each other.

Remember, social progress only happens when those in society's privileged classes choose to give up their status.

Race and class are rendered distinct analytically only to produce the realization that the analysis of the one cannot proceed without the other. A different dynamic it seems to me is at work in the critique of new sexuality studies.

The only way you get to the goal of color blindness is to be color conscious along the way.

Most of my diversity conversations are had with the majority population, because frankly, those people are the people who have the most influence over everybody's career.

Different identity groups hold specific levels of power over others when their battles play out in the media. To wit: Black beats white. Gay beats white. Black beats gay.

I have different privileges because I am a man, and I have to acknowledge that and realize that another person of color who is also a woman is having a different experience than I am.

We whites who position ourselves as liberal often opt to protect what we perceive as our moral reputationsrather than recognize or change our participation in systems of inequity and domination.

Victimhood, in the intersectional way of seeing the world, is akin to sainthood; power and privilege are profane.

A lot of people think that intersectionality is only about identity. But it's also about how race and gender are structured in particular workforces.

I'm someone very interested in diversity, equity, social justice, and getting rid of white supremacy.

When folks say 'identity politics' don't matter, it simply reinforces the norm of a white, middle-class, cis narrative and further marginalizes the rest of us who don't share that identity.

Intersectionality is not easy. It's not as though the existing frameworks that we have - from our culture, our politics, or our law - automatically lead people to being conversant and literate in intersectionality.

The better we understand how identities and power work together from one context to another, the less likely our movements for change are to fracture.

It's not like a choice to have an identity politics discussion when you're living it all the time. And if it's uncomfortable, well then maybe the way that we need to deal with that is by letting things be uncomfortable.

Intersectionality draws attention to invisibilities that exist in feminism, in anti-racism, in class politics, so, obviously, it takes a lot of work to consistently challenge ourselves to be attentive to aspects of power that we don't ourselves experience.

I think a lot of moral debates are not over what is the basis of justice, but who gets a ticket to play in the game.