Malcolm X Quotes

Old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys, the keepers of the hegemonic and reactionary flame, the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms.

[T]he agents are white Southerners who have been influenced by the mores of the community. To maintain their status, they have to be friendly with the local police and people who have been promoting segregation.

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.

And I ask why am I black, they say I was born in sin, and shamed inequity. One of the main songs we used to sing in church makes me sick, 'love wash me and I shall be whiter than snow.

Not only are whites kicking us; they are telling us how to react to being kicked.

I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be “accepted” by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on the planet.

When I started, black people were either victims or they were the perpetrators; they were the boogie men who jumped out of the bushes and did terrible things to you.

Sometimes I get slammed because I work at Fox and I am black. People are like, 'How could you work there? Who are you?' People really want to know what are your politics personally. Some of them, not everybody.

White folk done took this country. You're in their home, and they're gonna let you know it.You are not now, nor have you ever been, nor will you ever be a brother to white folk and if you do not realize that, you are in serious trouble.

As a result, ways out of the crisis are being intensively searched for at all levels - ways, which, however, aim at maintaining the whites' control over the country.

Many interviewers when they come to talk to me, think they're being progressive by not mentioning in their stories any longer that I'm black. I tell them, 'Don't stop now. If I shot somebody you'd mention it.'

It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.

The power of the white world is threatened whenever a black man refuses to accept the white world's definitions.

I find that the prejudice in this country to color is very great, and I sometimes fear that it is on the increase.

The policemen or soldiers are only a gun in the establishments hand. They make the racist secure in his racism.

White people are potential humans - they haven't evolved yet.

All white people in the United States have benefited from a white supremacy. But does that mean that a white person should be viewed badly because they turn against a white supremacist policy? Just because you've benefited from something shouldn't disable you from repudiating it.

There's so many, 'no, black people aren't like that' barriers in mainstream media.

There's nothing worse, I guess, than being black in an all-white church or being southern and being a liberal.

It is hard for a black man to just be himself. We spend so much time in defense of something that is indefensible because there is nothing to defend.

For generations, even many otherwise decent white Southerners learned to despise black people.

The Afro-American is not a bestial race.

I hate the term 'black' because it doesn't bring to life who we are as a people. The term 'black' has more negative synonyms than the term white.

I hate the way they portray us in the media. If you see a black family it says they're looting, if you see a white family it says they're looking for food.

You whites make all the ammunition.