W. E. B. Du Bois Quotes

Races are very often invented from ignorance, or for evil purposes.

Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites -- rather than fighting for jobs or education -- fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.

Santa Claus was white and everything bad was black. The little ugly duckling was the black duck, and the black cat was the bad luck. And if I threaten you, I'm going to blackmail you.I said, 'Momma, why don't they call it 'whitemail'? They lie too.'

Some colored people so scared of whitefolks they claim to love the cotton gin.

I wasn't aware of Ku Klux Klan as I was aware of the widespread assumption that African-Americans were dumber than white people. I think my father believed that. I think everybody white did.

I have always observed that wherever you find the negro, everything is going down around him, and wherever you find the white man, you see everything around him improving.

America is a white man's country.

If one lives in a country where racism is held valid and practiced in all ways of life eventually, no matter whether one is a racist or a victim, one comes to feel the absurdity of life....Racism generated from whites is first of all absurd. Racism creates absurdity among blacks as a defense mechanism.

Denying racism is the new racism.

There are still horrible things that go on because of the myth of race, but we don't have to succumb totally.

That's just how white folks will do you. It wasn't merely the cruelty involved; I was learning that black people could be mean and then some. It was a particular brand of arrogance, an obtuseness in otherwise sane people that brought forth our bitter laughter. It was as if whites didn't know they were being cruel in the first place. Or at least thought you deserved of their scorn.

It's too easy to say this or that is "race," and that has been a vehicle for an incredible amount of wrong in the world.

It is astonishing to see how little some of our would-be great and wise white men know about the Negro, his ability, his progress, his books, newspapers, churches, home tastes, etc.

The Southern Negro is not an incurably ignorant ape. The Southern white masses are not biologically degenerate.

It isn't the American white man who is a racist, but it's the American political, economic and social atmosphere that automatically nourishes a racist psychology in the white man.

The haughty American nation ... makes the Negro clean its boots and then proves the moral and physical inferiority of the Negro by the fact that he is a bootblack.

Perhaps the little Negro girl was holding a concealed razor blade. Maybe she was one of the troublemakers out for a fresh white scalp.

The thing is that it's always a constant reminder of how violent this country has been, always has been, you know. I'm still frustrated with these conversations: [Barack] Obama is black so that means this, that things are better, or it means that you voted for him because he's black.

Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is something I don't pretend to understand.

I think President [Barack] Obama deeply underestimated the force of white supremacy in American life.

The issue of racism and racial prejudice. It is very, very difficult to discuss. It is difficult to discuss the issue of apartheid. Many have made the observation that it is very difficult to find anyone in SA who ever supported apartheid because everyone was opposed, it was against our will and so on.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

I'm sick and tired of black and white people of good intent giving aspirin to a society that is dying of a cancerous disease.

Jury verdicts, basketball games, and even music are enough to set off black rage, it seems.

There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport... It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture.