Bill Nye Quotes

There can be no racial animosity, because there are no races.

So-called racial characteristics are not really racial at all but are due to the historical experiences of the communities in question.

Regarding the idea of race, .. no agreement seems to exist about what race means. Race seems to embody a fact as simple and as obvious as the noonday sun, but if that is so, why the endless wrangling about the idea and the facts of race. What is a race? How can it be recognized? Who constitute the several races?.

It so happens that I never talk about race. I do not know what race is.

Here's an easy one: "Race is an entirely social construct." No, it's partially one, depending on how any given society seeks to define it and its implications. But there are basic things such as skin color and hair texture. Even a Martian who'd had no exposure to human "social constructs" would be able to spot those differences. But no Martian, as hard as he tried, could point at a "culture" or to "equality." Those are the social constructs. Those can't be measured in the same way as human DNA.

I do not believe in race as such. Race is a fraud. All modern people are the conglomeration of so many ethnic mixtures that no pure race remains.

People keep telling me about the white race and the black race - and it really doesn't make sense. I played Miami, met a fellow two shades darker than me - and his name was Ginsberg! Took my place in two sit-in demonstrations - nobody knew the difference. The he tried for a third lunch counter and blew the whole bit ... asked for blintzes.

The United States is not a nation of black and white people. Any fool can see that white people are not really white, and that black people are not black.

When people first meet me, they're always like, 'What are you?' as far as ethnicity. And I've been pegged as 'ethnically ambiguous.'

More often than not, we think of ourselves as black, white, Asian, or Hispanic pretty much in this country, but the real America is much more than that.

If we speak only of the genotype, I can find a black who, at the level of his chromosomes, is closer to a Swede than Peter Botha is. But what counts in reality is the phenotype. It is the physical appearance which counts. This black, even if on the level of his cells he is closer than Peter Botha, when he is in South Africa he will live in Soweto. Throughout history, it has always been the phenotype which has been at issue; we mustn't lose sight of this fact.

It is impossible to say with any certainty to which human race we belong. We all differ visibly in the color of our skin.

I wanted to separate color from race. Distinguishing color - light, black, in-between - as the marker for race is really an error.

People are all exactly alike. There's no such thing as a race and barely such a thing as an ethnic group. If we were dogs, we'd be the same breed. George Bush and an Australian Aborigine have fewer differences than a Lhasa apso and a toy fox terrier. A Japanese raised in Riyadh would be an Arab. A Zulu raised in New Rochelle would be an orthodontist. People are all the same, though their circumstances differ terribly.

Race is an invention, not a noticeable genetic presence, and cultural traits are brute concoctions of the social sciences.

All is race - there is no other truth.

Why would we have different races if God meant us to be alike and associate with each other?

Among the words that can be all things to all men, the word "race" has a fair claim to being the most common, most ambiguous and most explosive. No one today would deny that it is one of the great catchwords about which ink and blood are spilled in reckless quantities. Yet no agreement seems to exist about what race means.

'Yellow Face' marks my summation of multiculturalism.

Does a black person make them an African American? No. There are Hispanics that are very, very dark skinned so the word has lost its meaning, it's not a very concise or proper word to use even today and it wasn't then.

I knew exactly what I was, and there was no hang-up with me. None whatsoever. The fact that the pigment of my skin maybe being lighter brown than other people of my race, maybe some of them, but you know our race has all colors.

I am a black man inside and outside and you are white men on the outside, but inside, you are Africans like me.

It's important for me to think I'm mixed-race.

I talk about race and culture, and that's what my fans respond to. If you grew up in an environment where race and culture were never an issue for you, or where you don't see the humor in our so-called differences, then you might not respond to what I'm doing.

Mostly I'm proud to be an African-American woman, but I'm glad I have a universal look as well.