Michael Dyson Quotes

It's much easier to talk about racism when you're able to use mutants as a metaphor. People would much rather talk about Charles Xavier and Magneto than they would about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.

I think the O.J. Simpson case conjured all the paranoia, the racial anxiety, but also the racial fatigue that America has endured over the last half century.

America is racial. America was founded on race. Race is America. The code name for America is 'race.'

While we dance in the streets and pat ourselves on the back for being a nation great enough to reach beyond racial divides to elect our first African-American president, let us not forget that we remain a nation still proudly practicing prejudice.

Today's white majority is largely silent about the race question.

I have nothing to do with racism in America; it was here when I got here.

You don't need someone destroying you when your own people are the worst messengers possible. And this is what black people in America have not come to grips with.

For the black man there is only one destiny. And it is white.

You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

There is a racist virus in the American blood stream...

The diversity industry needs friction to survive, so it perpetually reworks the definition of racism.

'Dear White People' started a conversation about race. It's such a difficult thing to talk about, especially in America because of our history. I love that you can confront it with humour and with satire.

There is racism all over the United States. Most Southerners I know, we definitely find ourselves defending our heritage.

There's a long tradition of black folks pleading with white people. It's a tradition that emerges from political necessity, so I get it; I'm just not very interested in it.

A lot of problems that are going on aren't going to get better if we don't talk about it. Race is the biggest one. It's a very, very uncomfortable topic because the biggest part of America was founded on it.

Yes, for blacks, racism functions without the actual presence of whites, just as for whites it functions without the actual presence of blacks! Beliefs, conventions, history do the work.

The mainstream media choose to flaunt story lines that make white America appear guilty of continued institutional racism, while black racism against whites is ignored as an acceptable disposition given our nation's 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.

As much as we want to say racism is dead, it's still rearing its ugly head constantly.

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

I feel like racism's more pronounced in America.

I do not claim to be an expert on race in America.

The history of racial violence in our country is both omnipresent and unspoken. It is a smog that surrounds us that few will admit is there.

We tend to think of racism as this interpersonal verbal or physical abuse, when in truth, that is only one way that racism manifests itself. The reality of contemporary racism is that it while it is ubiquitous, it is often invisible, subsequently making it more difficult to name and identify.

Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.