Teju Cole Quotes

I think racial justice - and addressing the sick and enduring legacy of structural racism - remains one of the greatest challenges of our time, and one that's particularly important for more and more white people to speak up about.

The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

White folks don't want peace; they want quiet. The price you pay for peace is justice.

It's very funny, American society: White culture can do all sorts of things and get away with it, but the minute a black person does it, it's interpreted in some way.

Black Power alone is no more insurance against social injustice than white power.

The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening.

White women and black men have it both ways. They can act as oppressor or ... and oppression of others.

I want you to admit that there is such a thing as white privilege.

The Negroes of America had taken the President, the press and the pulpit at their word when they spoke in broad terms of freedom and justice. But the absence of brutality and unregenerate evil is not the presence of justice. To stay murder is not the same thing as to ordain brotherhood.

Martin Luther King was bumped off unjustly, Adam Clayton Powell was bumped off unjustly, they took my title unjustly, they killed Megers Ever unjustly, all the integrators who love white folks, was unjustly kicked out of Washington, they've been deprived of education and poverty throughout the country.

I just feel like if I really believe what Dr. King said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,' then I should be compelled to use my God-given platform to effect change.

Now, then, in order to understand white supremacy we must dismiss the fallacious notion that white people can give anybody their freedom.

The goal of Dr. Martin Luther King is to give Negroes a chance to sit in a segregated restaurant beside the same white man who had brutalized them for 400 years.

All women, and men of color - we were owned like tables and chairs. We spent a hundred years getting a legal identity as human beings. That's a big thing.

If any man claims the Negro should be content... let him say he would willingly change the color of his skin and go to live in the Negro section of a large city. Then and only then has he a right to such a claim.

We have two evils to fight, capitalism and racism. We must destroy both racism and capitalism.

You know, modern liberals are just, I think frankly, totally off the deep end... their only answer is to yell racism and hide.

You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.

They allow us to disrespect our Black woman. A lot of these things would be considered criminal if it were to be carried out in the streets. That's like when they tell you after you buy your VHS and you rent movies they tell you not to copy the movies.

I don't want any injustice brought against the bullies. Bullies just don't know any better. Anyone who is crying about police brutality or victimization as an adult needs to stop it and realize the privileges we have in this country.

When I think of the trials and tribulations that black men go through in America and that black artists went through, I feel very privileged.

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.

The idea of making a film - a film that I had certainly never seen before - about the slave experience was a huge responsibility. It's a project that requires a wider understanding of the geopolitical nature of the slave trade, of historical and modern-day racism.

I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it's difficult for 'poor people' - poor white people, brown people - to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are.