Barack Obama Quotes

Race is everything.

The idea of "race" represents one of the most dangerous myths of our time.

I never though much about race.

We also thought of ourselves in racial and largely ethnic terms.

My mother worked in the white world, but I lived almost exclusively in a black world. I don't think I had ever seen a white teacher until I got to high school.

Race, to me, is a very blurry thing.

White women love me 'cause of my edge. And I love white women.

The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination

My books are not about how it feels to be a black man. My books are about how it feels to be a human being, and part of what I'm trying to sort out is what we mean - what I mean, what you mean, what everybody in the culture means - when they say 'black man,' or they say 'white person.'

Among the thousand white persons, I am a dark rock surged upon, and overswept.

There was a time in America not long ago when rock 'n' roll was called race music, and white kids who wanted to go see Chuck Berry were completely forbidden.

There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.

Race is a very sensitive subject.

We're talking about race. It's ideology, it's a mode of policy. It's a practice. And it intertwines with class in a very specific way to create something very distinctive that we see now being legitimated in the United States by fascists who absolutely are unapologetic about what they're saying.

It's getting almost so bad a colored man hasn't got any country.

Races are very often invented from ignorance, or for evil purposes.

Race is a part of every conversation in America, whether you know it or not.

"Race." I really can't understand it as anything other than something people say. The people who have said that you and I are both "black" and therefore deserve a certain kind of interaction with the world, they make race. I can't take them seriously.

You white folks have long been eating the white meat of the chicken. We Negroes are now ready for some of the white meat instead of the dark meat.

At the heart of the fractured soul of America is the frightening chasm of race.

Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.

I read so much stuff that black women say, especially about my relationship. 'Oh, he left his black wife to go be with some exotic chick.' First of all, my girl is black: she's Jamaican.

Well who's black and what is a black person?

There's no question that I'm African-American. OK? I'm a black man. We're not going to escape that.

I asked him if he ever hung out with black guys in high school and he said, 'Well, no. They always had these angry looks on their faces. Who wouldn't look ticked off having to deal with nitwits like him?