Barack Obama Quotes

I struggle with racism every day

We've all had some level of injustice, whether 20 years in prison, or 20 minutes sitting in your car waiting for a police officer to determine your future. Or even a few moments in an elevator with some woman clutching her purse thinking you're going to rob her ¾ regardless of celebrity, that has happened to me.

I got kicked out of four high schools just because people took issue with the colour of my skin. As if I could help the colour I was born.

It's unfortunate that the entire country is a racist country.We're living in a country that discriminates, and has certain racist tendencies.

racism is alive and doing too well in America.

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

Had it not been for the race problem early thrust upon me and enveloping me, I should have probably been an unquestioning worshipper at the shrine of the established social order and of the economic development into which I was born.

America's racist, so what do you expect.

Racial inequality is a big problem.

Until we have a serious discussion, this problem [racism] will continue to occur.

Nothing in the world is easier in the United States than to accuse a black man of crime.

Racism is, among other things, the unearned skepticism of one group of humans joined to the unearned sympathy for another.

Racism is cruel and unjust. It cuts deep and lingers long in individual and community memories. And it is not a thing of the past....We all have a duty to do what we can to turn this around.

Nobody's ever asked me to pay for a meal before I've eaten it, I've never been pulled over just because I was driving the wrong kind of car in the wrong kind of area at the wrong time of night.

For people who have been slaves for 150 years doing all the work to be called lazy and shiftless by the man who was sitting on the porch—that is a phenomenon in itself.

… nothing less than the legalization of racial discrimination

It's something that black men still go through to this day, which is women clutching their purses, hitting the lock button on store, or just basic attitudes. And even as a U.S. congressman, as a black man, it is very, very frustrating, and you build up an internal anger about it that you can't act on.

The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.

It doesn't even feel like racism is real. It just feels like the weirdest ploy, like we're just being had on so many levels. It's even kind of funny when you think about it. A reason not to like someone is 'because you're black.' C'mon, man. How dumb is that?

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

As long as I've been playing, they never say I done anything. They always say that some white guy did it.

Now I had won the gold medal. But it didn't mean anything, because I didn't have the right color skin.

What does a black man look like begging for a cup of coffee in a white restaurant, and doesn't have a job to back up his - to pay for it when, when - when he does get the coffee? It's putting the cart before the horse.

You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and gives a name to them, and explains why it is like this.

I know what it's like to feel hopeless and to feel like you're not good enough just because of where you're from. I know what it's like to be profiled and to be abused by the police. I know what it's like to be racially profiled, treated unjustly and abused by the police just because of how you look.