Jane Elliott Quotes

There are not grades of racism. There's racism.

As you keep pulling back the layers of how deeply rooted anti-blackness and white supremacy are in this country, it is exhausting, and it is traumatizing.

We need to make sure that we have an honest, honest conversation and that we engage honest practices around how racism operates in this country. It's not just about people being mean to each other.

The language of violence that many whites use to describe anti-racist endeavors is not without significance, as it is another example of how white fragility distorts reality.

I've seen and always been extremely aware of racism... casual racism, serious racism... all of that.

The biggest thing is we need to stop acting like racism don't exist.

I don't believe in reverse racism. I really don't.

All racism is wrong, and denying that it exists does not make it go away.

The truth is, no, we don't live in a post-racial state anywhere in America, and this is particularly true in Hollywood.

My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before. I have found that at Princeton, no matter how liberal and open-minded some of my white professors and classmates try to be toward me, I sometimes feel like a visitor on campus; as if I really don't belong.

If you are white, racism is too easily ignored and forgiven, regarded as of burning concern only to the ethnic minorities, and therefore of relatively marginal significance.

White Americans today don't know what in the world to do because when they put us behind them, that's where they made their mistake... they put us behind them, and we watched every move they made.

I know I'm breaking a taboo by using the term antiwhite racism, but I do so intentionally, because it's the reality some of our fellow citizens live with, and remaining quiet about it only aggravates their trauma.

There's only one free person in this society, and he is white and male.

I was lucky enough to occasionally break out of that racist situation that prevails in the Hollywood film production community. But it was racist then and it will always be that way. It will never be otherwise.

No, we are not anti-white. But we don't have time for the white man. The white man is on top already, the white man is the boss already... He has first-class citizenship already. So you are wasting your time talking to the white man. We are working on our own people.

Sometimes black people really want to hold onto our oppression - 'This is ours! This belongs to us.' You can't just talk about equality for somebody else. Let's pass it on. Let's pass it on to somebody else. At the end of the day, it is all about inequality.

If you're black in America, race is a factor in your life. Start with that assumption.

Seems to me that the institutions that function in this country are clearly racist, and that they're built upon racism.

I don't think people in America understand race, and how deep the hooks of whiteness there are in our consciousness.

Blacks essentially play the race card, when necessary as a counter to white privilege.

When we understand [that] American democracy and white supremacy are inextricably linked, we can see how tortuous our efforts have been to accommodate the value gap.

If blacks are oppressed in America, why isn't there a black exodus?

Ours has not been a racially democratic society for 300 years.

If you’re talking about American history, you’re talking about race.