Chris Matthews Quotes

I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.

I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did.

America is a white man's country.

If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.

Since the white people collectively have practiced the worst form of hatred against Negroes in America and they know that they are guilty of it, now when The Honorable Elijah Muhammad comes along and begins to list the historic deed - the historic attitude, the historic behavior of the white man in this country toward the black people in this country, again, the white people are so guilty and they can't stop doing these things to make Mr. Muhammad appear to be wrong, so they hide their wrong by saying "he is teaching hatred."

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

We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them.

All of this in [Donald] Trump now has become so overt that it's difficult when we talk about repression not to talk about white supremacy, not to talk about its legacy, from slavery to lynching to mass incarceration, and what it has developed into.

Negrophobes exist. It is not hatred of the Negro, however, that motivates them; they lack the courage for that, or they have lost it. Hate is not inborn; it has to be constantly cultivated, to be brought into being, in conflict with more or less recognized guilt complexes. Hate demands existence and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behavior; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching. Each to his own side of the street.

Racism is not dead, but it is on life support -- kept alive by politicians, race hustlers and people who get a sense of superiority by denouncing others as 'racists'

I'm so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.

Bigotry is surely an exportable American commodity, especially when it comes to race.

Racism is so universal in this country, so widespread and deepseated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.

I think really the whole problem with racism and its continuing legacy in this country is that we simply love it. Who would we be without the 'struggle?'

I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories... We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust... We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.

The seal and the constitution, reflects the thinking of the founding fathers that this was to be a nation by white people, and for white people. Native Americans, Blacks, and all other non-white people, were to be the burden bearers for the real citizens of this nation.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

This is the United States of America and unfortunately, race still matters to a lot of people. The evil head of racism doesn't hide, it sticks its head up.

Byrd, the former Klu [sic] Klux Klan Kleagle, is taking a stand over states' rights, or his rights over State, or some such. Whatever the reason, the sight of an old Klansman blocking a little colored girl from Birmingham from getting into her office contributed to the general retro vibe that hangs around the Democratic Party these days.

racism is alive and doing too well in America.

The white man is a devil. If he is not a devil, let him prove it!

Barack Obama is the president of the United States of America. More specifically, Barack Obama is the president of a congenitally racist country, erected upon the plunder of life, liberty, labor, and land. This plunder has not been exclusive to black people. - Ta

... all Americans are the prisoners of racial prejudice.

Racism is so extreme and so pervasive in our American society that no black individual lives in an atmosphere of freedom.