DeRay Mckesson Quotes

I don't think many people understand what racism is. The intellectuals use it like toilet paper; it's something they can use. It's not something they live.

Let me just say that to imagine racism does not exist is imagination. And to imagine that it does not create its own set of problems is true imagination. So let's not imagine that racism is gone, extinguished, because it's not. We are seeing this in the top levels of the political arena, and we are seeing it very, very plainly.

We would be silly to say that race issues don't exist in 2014.

The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.

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

Of course there's racism in this country, and we have a terrible history of that in this nation.

In our country, racism is never far below the surface.

There are not grades of racism. There's racism.

I've seen and always been extremely aware of racism... casual racism, serious racism... all of that.

The biggest thing is we need to stop acting like racism don't exist.

We can't throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.

I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial.

I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.

Racism is not dead. Definitely, there are these biases.

There's no such thing as reverse racism.

Yeah, race exists. Racism is still here, and it's doing well. Turn on the news. I don't think me and my comedy can really change that.

If I were white, I'd get less criticism.

Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism.

Social equity is based on justice; politics change on the opinion of the time. The black man's skin will be a mark of social inferiority so long as white men are conceited, ignorant, unjust, and prejudiced. You cannot legislate these qualities out of the white - you must steal them out by teaching, illustration, and example.

As an African-American, I know all too well the negative thoughts and feelings hatred and bigotry cause.

Racism cannot be cured solely by attacking some of the results it produces, like discrimination in housing or in education.

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

Blacks essentially play the race card, when necessary as a counter to white privilege.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.

Ours has not been a racially democratic society for 300 years.