Rick Famuyiwa Quotes

It was definitely during the Obama administration that talking about racism, or calling it out, suddenly seemed taboo. It seemed like talking about race was somehow summoning the evil of racism.

White fragility doesn't always manifest in overt ways; silence and withdrawal are also functions of fragility.

The less I talk about being black, the better.

As black folks we're always sensitive. As a black person it's always racial.

I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.

Race is a subject about which there are points of agreement, and about which there is no agreement; a subject that is either spoken of reluctantly, or not spoken of at all.

White people are very wily when it comes to race. We will do everything that we can to get out from under the idea of race.

Everyone is so terrified of being labeled a racist.

Every single thing in my life is built around race.

I asked him if he ever hung out with black guys in high school and he said, 'Well, no. They always had these angry looks on their faces. Who wouldn't look ticked off having to deal with nitwits like him?

Whites would rather not be involved in race matters, I think.

There are people out there like Fox News who, every time a Black person complains in public of how we are treated in our society, is accused of “playing the race card.”

The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination

I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.

White identity politics has permeated our rhetoric.

White Americans can go a long time without ever thinking about the color of their skin. Black and brown Americans have no choice but to confront issues of race every day.

In the 'era of colorblindness,' there's a nearly fanatical desire to cling to the myth that we, as a nation, have 'moved beyond' race.

The most glaring aspect of white privilege is that when someone is described neutrally - without indicating color or ethnicity - more often than not, people will assume that the person is white. That assumption indicates an uncomfortable truth: in our society, whiteness determines humanity.

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

Whitey is uptight about offending blacks without really knowing what offends blacks.

One way that whites protect their positions when challenged on race is to invoke the discourse of self-defense. Through this discourse, whites characterize themselves as victimized, slammed, blamed, and attacked.

To me, race is the single most divisive factor affecting American society. It's an issue that we are afraid of, that we shy away from, and quite frankly, it amuses me that we are so sensitive to the issue.

It became clear over time that white people have extremely low thresholds for enduring any discomfort associated with challenges to our racial worldviews.

The most effective adaptation of racism over time is the idea that racism is conscious bias held by mean people.

Are black people conscious of how excruciatingly self-conscious white people have become in their every interaction with black people? Is this self-consciousness an improvement? Maybe not, because I'm thinking of people in categories rather than as people, which is a famously dangerous thing to do.