Chris Hayes Quotes

I think it's just easier for people to put you in a box or a lane because you look similar. I think that's unfair for anybody in any situation.

I think most gypsies all over the world are used to being not really welcome and always on the run, expecting people to not like them and to be critical.

Some social scientists say that in-group/out-group biases are hard-wired into the human brain. Even without overt prejudice, it is cognitively convenient for people to sort items into categories and respond based on what is usually associated with those categories: a form of statistical discrimination, playing the odds.

I am fairly classless because it is very difficult to class someone who comes from a mixed marriage.

We’re always talking about blacks as a group and whites as individuals.

For decades, scholars have studied the ways in which implicit biases affect how we perceive other people in this multiethnic society of ours. The data consistently shows that about 90 percent of us possess some implicit prejudices - and, unsurprisingly, people typically favor their own group.

We're a social species, and we want to get along with the people we like and who are like us. That's just good adaptive behaviour. We're more likely to accept something if we hear it from a friend, whereas we're sceptical of people who are not like us - which is what leads to racism, nationalism, sexism and all forms of bigotry.

I am just mystified by these people telling me I would think Obama was doing a great job if his skin contained less melanin.

Of all the ways people save time, I think racism is the worst.

I think that bias is not a fixed thing. It's not as though some people are biased and others are not. It ebbs and flows. It can be manipulated. It changes according to a person's circumstances.

People will identify with a persecuted minority without asking themselves what they are identifying with.

The first time we meet another person an insidious little voice in our heads says, "I might wear eyeglasses or be chunky around the hips or a girl, but at least I'm not Gay or Black or a Jew." Meaning: I may be me- but at least I have the good sense not to be YOU.

People feel certain things. Hispanics feel certain things towards blacks. Blacks feel certain things towards other groups. It's been that way historically and it will always be that way.

There are two kinds of people I cannot abide: bigots and any well-organized ethnic group.

The way that we make dumb decisions and discriminatory decisions is by employing stereotypes about groups of people. We don't see people as fully human when other people speak for them.

It's interesting, gender versus race. I think people say that to women more: 'Oh, you're my favorite female.' They wouldn't say 'favorite black comic.'

Where people really base their principles has nothing to do with the color of someone's skin, it has to do with money and their class.

The problem with labels is that they lead to stereotypes and stereotypes lead to generalizations and generalizations lead to assumptions and assumptions lead back to stereotypes. It’s a vicious cycle, and after you go around and around a bunch of times you end up believing that all vegans only eat cabbage and all gay people love musicals.

People expect black women to be angry, irrationally so, without reason. They think we are animals and we go around like the Wild Things.

I think humans are driven by othering people, by defining themselves by who they are not and who is different from them. Human beings are in love with othering.

It is natural anywhere that people like their own kind, but it is not necessarily natural that their fondness for their own kind should lead them to the subjection of whole groups of other people not like them.

You always wonder whether the attacks on my capabilities came from an honest evaluation of my accomplishments or from stereotypical presumptions that we, people of color, just can't do it, for some reason. This is, for an accomplished Latino, an accomplished African American, an accomplished anyone who disproves stereotypes, it's a constant battle in your life.

And I'm a Hailsham student - which is enough by itself sometimes to get people's backs up.

It's foolish to be prejudiced. There are so many reasons to hate people on an individual basis.

The moment you place a label on someone, you begin to treat him or her accordingly.