Paul Theroux Quotes

I know a lot about being white - because I have to, I live in the white world. A white person doesn't live in the Indian world. I have to be white every day.

You can be poor, middle class, or rich - it doesn't matter. The black card will still confer upon you an entire history of oppression, even if you've never been oppressed. Flash the black card, and most white people will cower.

I think of the described dynamics as a fluid negotiation. I don't think these specific interactions can happen to the black or brown body without the white body. And there are ways in which, if you say, "Oh, this happened to me," then the white body can say, "Well, it happened to her and it has nothing to do with me." But if it says "you," that you is an apparent part of the encounter.

I'm a white male, age 18 to 49. Everyone listens to me, no matter how dumb my suggestions are.

Thomas Jefferson—another gorgeous white boy who would not have been interested in me. This was my problem in a nutshell. To get some play in Charlottesville, you had to be either a Martha Jefferson or a Sally Hemings.

fter the O.J. Simpson trial there was talk about how the country was splitting in two - one part black, one part white. It was ludicrous: typical gringo arrogance. It's as though whites and blacks can imagine America only in terms of each other. It's mostly white arrogance, in that it places whites always at the center of the racial equation.

Mostly I'm interviewed by white people, and identified with white society.

I’ve lived in several countries and been a disaster everywhere.

I've always liked cops, as much as you can like a group of people, you know? Sure, I've been hassled, but I'm a white dude - privileged.

I re-read The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter. It's a book every one should read, particularly Americans, as the USA is her primary focus. Her book demonstrates that white is not universal, that white is not neutral, that it has a history, which she eloquently delineates. It's not often you finish a book understanding how the world operates better than before you read it.

If white privilege is a thing, why are people working so hard to be black? All of the award shows and cultural events favor black culture.

I'm not white, I don't apologize for what my country did to become great

Let me just say, at once: I am not now nor have I ever been a white man. And, leaving aside the joys of unearned privilege, this leaves me feeling pretty good.

Reduce the supply of black labor by colonizing the black laborer out of the country, and by precisely so much you increase the demand for and wages of white labor.

The privileged position of whiteness doesn't allow for someone with one drop of Negro blood to be considered white, which allows whiteness to be a fairly pure category while blackness has to absorb an expansive reality of representation.

Among Negroes we have Negroes who are as white as some white people. Still there's a difference.

My white skin disgusts me. My passport disgusts me. They are the marks of an insufferable privilege bought at the price of others' agony. If I could peel myself inside out I would be glad. If I could become part of the oppressed I would be free.

As for the not-black black president issue - white people can imagine blacks worse off than them, no problem. And now they can imagine blacks better off, no problem. But they still can't imagine black people who are just like them. That's the real problem. That's racism. Not being able to believe that those others are actually just like you.

It's hard being a white rapper sometimes! When that happens you just need to battle through.

Do you know what I think white people wholly own? I think freedom of speech is a white thing. This is something that white people do. I think governments, this is a white thing.

The advantage that my children have is that my children are encountering the nicest white people that America has ever produced. Let’s hope America keeps producing nicer white people.

When white and black meet today, sometimes there is a ready understanding that there has been an encounter between two human beings. But often there is only, or chiefly, an awareness that Two Colors are in the room.

A cynic had defined aid as simply the system by which poor white people in rich countries gave money to rich black people in poor countries to put into Swiss bank accounts.

When you're a person of color in white America, you know white people. You know why you know white people? Because you can't enjoy any kind of entertainment if you are not able to humanize white people. If you watch a film and are like, "Oh, this has white people in it? Then I'm not interested," then you can't enjoy anything in America!

The only way for white folks to reclaim the full arc of their humanity, the full trajectory of their ethical content, of their ethical identity, is to surrender the white innocence that prevents them from being fully mature.