Vine Deloria Jr. Quotes

[To the South African parliament:] I do not know why we equate - and with the examples before us - a white skin with civilization.

The modern conception of 'race' owes its widespread diffusion to the white man. Wherever he has gone, he has carried it with him. ... This is not to say that discrimination against (personal) groups on the basis of skin color or difference did not exist in the ancient world; there is plenty of evidence that it did. But it is to say that such views never became the officially established doctrine, upon any large scale, of any ancient society. ...

In Western Catholicism, darkness was evil. In the colonial and imperial context, dark skin was always weak, powerless, subjugated. If you see these images all the time, they become commonplace, and they no longer become a spectacular or sensational thing.

I think the obsession with fair skin should end.

A general belief seems to prevail in the colony that the Indians are little better, if at all, than the savages or natives of Africa. Even the children are taught to believe in that manner, with the result that the Indian is being dragged down to the position of a raw Kaffir.

The inference is, that God has restated the superiority of the West. God always does like that when a thousand white people surround one dark one. Dark people are always "bad" when they do not admit the Divine Plan like that. A certain Javanese man who sticks up for Indonesian Independence is very lowdown by the papers, and suspected of being a Japanese puppet.

Recapitulation provided a convenient focus for the persuasive racism of white scientists; they looked to the activities of their own children for comparison with normal adult behavior in lower races.

Hitler had a lot of Jews high up in the hierarchy of the Third Reich. Color does not necessarily denote quality, content or value. If a black is a tyrant, he is first and foremost a tyrant, then he incidentally is black. Bush is a tyrant and if he gathers around him black tyrants, they all have to be treated as they are being treated.

The essence of White Supremacy is this: they are people who want to keep things as they are. That their children's children's children might be a different color is something very alarming to them - in short they are committed to the maintenance of the static image.

That which commands admiration in the white woman only hastens the degradation of the female slave.

Nowhere in history has the white man been brotherly toward anyone.

There's white racist DNA running through the synapses of his or her brain tissue. They will kill their own kind, defend the enemies of their kind or anyone who is perceived to be the enemy of the milky white way of life.

I'm not going to play a racial game. With me, you're going to meet a guy named Shelby Steele, and you will have to get to know me as an individual. The color of my skin won't tell you anything. I think there's more and more of that in America.

As Abraham Lincoln said, if there is to be a superior position, he would rather that superior position be assigned to the White race. That superior position must be protected by those who believe in White supremacy and they will do everything in their power to make sure that that position will always be throughout the generations.

If one will always have to feel white first, and African second, it would be better not to stay on in Africa

A greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities is: We are the color of skin first and people second.

To avoid the consequences of posterity the mulattos give the blacks a first class letting alone. There is a frantic stampede white-ward to escape from Jamaica's black mass.

I was in Toronto when they had a severe outbreak of SARS - you know, Severe Asian Racism Syndrome. I was in the airport and there were these big snowboarder guys and they had white masks around their necks, and as soon as they saw me, they put their masks on. So I went "cough, cough, cough... You wanna egg rorr?

Imagine Americans who go to Paris. Why would you want to go where someone's going to disparage you? Why would you go anywhere where they treat you bad? Well, that's how it is for us to go to Mexico. You have to be on your guard, because I think the Mexicans are harder on the Mexicans, the Mexican-Americans. They don't see us as Mexican. I think part of it's a class issue and a color issue. We're more connected to their servants, so what are we doing staying at a nice hotel? There's a kind of shame.

Among these widely differing families of men, the first that attracts attention, the superior in intelligence, in power, and in enjoyment, is the white, or European, the MAN pre-eminently so called, below him appear the Negro and the Indian.

Personal prejudice: Hispanic and Latino women with blond hair look like hookers to me, no matter how clean or cute they are. Somehow those skin tones that look so good with dark, dark hair just don't work for me with lighter shades.

The system of white supremacy is intended to make folks of color doubt themselves, their intelligence, their abilities, their very sanity. And so it's important to remember that folks of color know their own realities.

There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas...

When it comes to the Yellow Races overruning the world, you may laugh ... [The Chinese] have neither the foresight or endurance to overrun any white country in any way except by intermarriage. One American marine could stand off a great many yellowmen without much effort.

One hundred years ago, the slave was freed. One hundred years later, the Negro remains in bondage to the color of his skin.