Frank Askin Quotes

We simply cannot insist that race should not matter when everything in life argues that it does.

In the South, there is more overt racism. It's more willfully ignorant and brazen. But it's not as if by moving I'm going to be able to escape institutionalized racism. It's not as though my life won't be twisted and impacted by racism anymore. It will.

The reality is we have allowed systemic racism to continue through all these years.

If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn't there a black exodus?

The white man believes in equality, but apparently believes the white man is more equal than the Indian.

Opportunity seems to be color-coded here in America

He shatters the myth of white supremacy once and for all.

Racism is systemic: It's oppression that's built into the laws, legislation, into the way neighborhoods are policed, and into job opportunities and health care and education.

Racial prejudice boils down to the deeply anti-American message that some people are born to fail.

The greatest problem is not with flat-out white racists, but rather with the far larger number of Americans who believe intellectually in racial equality but are quietly oblivious to injustice around them.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

I had always been interested in race and racial justice, but mostly it was with my nose pressed up against the glass, looking at the South from a long way away.

I hate to say this about the Republican establishment, but their view of Civil Rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club.

When we understand [that] American democracy and white supremacy are inextricably linked, we can see how tortuous our efforts have been to accommodate the value gap.

There's not a white man in this country who can say he never benefited from being white.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

American democracy is a failure. It is a miserable failure. It has failed because it is a limited and racial and divisible democracy …. How can we fight for democracy in Burma, a country we have not seen, when we don't have democracy in Birmingham, a city we have seen.

Civil rights in this country is unfinished business, and racism is alive and well.

With George Bush's policies, I could make an argument for how they affect black people in a negative way. You know what I mean? But I wouldn't argue that he's a white supremacist.

If there is inequality, and that equates with colour, then I'm going to deal with it.

Freedom in America was not always flat. Racism made it un-flat, so that some people had privileges over other people.

If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed.

I'm not familiar particularly with Hillary Clinton's neighborhood, but I wish people were a little bit more curious about what we call privilege and about why it's there. Black people in this country have no choice but to be curious. We have to know. I wish folks would do a little bit more investigation.

Racism has its boot squarely wedged on the neck of black communities, and we don't want to be told that hard work and responsibility are the answer.

We've come a long way from the days of Jim Crow, and yes, we elected a black president, but racism lives.