Ralphie May Quotes

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

It's no surprise that White people say things when they are together about Black people.

We always talk about how, obviously, there is still very in-your-face aggressive racism. But there's a lot of passive racism that, in the moment, you don't even realize is racist. You chalk it up as a strange interaction you had, and then you look at the context of it later on and realize the root of it was racism.

There's no such thing as reverse racism.

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.

Let's face it: there's still a certain amount of racism in human beings, so that shows up in Hollywood.

The more afraid we are of the shadow of racism, the more conscious we might become of our own unsuspected biases.

This is really honest: I have to remind myself not to look another black man as a threat.

I have a huge issue with blackface.

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?

Having a strong race lens means you understand racism is threaded through and institutionalized in all of our systems and our very perceptions, threaded through how someone looks at you, treats you, thinks about you and your potential.

When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.

When I was a kid, no one would believe anything positive that you could say about black people. That's a terrible burden.

My encounters with racism are sort of second-hand situations where I might be standing around with a group of white friends and someone makes a comment that they wouldn't make at my family reunion.

Black reporters are as capable of racism as anyone else.

Racists are irrational and illogical in their attempts to justify their prejudices.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

I realized there was racism because people thought, 'Oh, if you like roll 'n' roll, that makes you like a white kid.'

People think I'm this angry black man walking around in a constant state of rage.

What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian.

I had this stereotypical view that black people apart from me probably threw stones and lived in huts.

We know that we're not supposed to be racially biased, and we don't want to think of ourselves as racially biased, so we tell ourselves a different story.

You face racism in small and large ways.

The thought of' the inferiority of the Negro is drilled into him in almost every class he enters and in almost every book he studies.

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.