John Ashcroft Quotes

The growing tide of anti-Semitism shocks the conscious of everyone who values freedom, and the ugly, hateful acts particularly stain the character of democracies where liberty and religious freedom are supposed to be respected.

Bigotry toward any faith community cannot have any place in civilized society anywhere in the world.

As to the lynchings of negroes, by torture and burning alive, professing Christians in the South and West have emulated the horrible example of the Apaches, Comanches, and other Indian savages of a former generation

These barbarities [American lynchings] have found many apologists, on the ground that the negroes are licentious and dishonest--as, indeed, many of them are. But who set them the example, and educated them in these vices? In too many cases the white population, and even their legal authorities.

To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.

Objecting to someone because of his religious beliefs is not the same thing as prejudice based on religious heritage, race, or gender.

You can't confuse safety with religion or national origin.

The whites were really brutishly ignorant, blitheringly, so they killed people sometimes - just came into the African-American community and maimed people because they didn't agree with God's choice for the colors of the people's skin.

When I was a kid in Boston, it was one of the most anti-Semitic cities in the country. If you were living in the ghetto as I was, the Jewish ghetto part of Roxbury, and you went out alone at night, you might be subject to having people attacking you for being a Christ killer.

I do have to ask the following: I feel very bad about that [spate of incidents, racially-charged incidents, across the country ].

Hate demands existence, and he who hates has to show his hate in appropriate actions and behaviors; in a sense, he has to become hate. That is why the Americans have substituted discrimination for lynching.

Even when black youth gangs target white strangers on the streets and spew out racial hatred as they batter them and rob them, mayors, police chiefs and the media tiptoe around their racism and many in the media either don't cover these stories or leave out the race and racism involved.

If I want people to be empathetic to my struggle - they don't see hate crimes at the mosque, they don't see people screaming at their cousins, brothers, or sisters who wear a hijab to "go back to your country" - I have to do the same.

We still have too many Americans who give in to their fears of those who are different from them. Not so long ago, swastikas were painted on the doors of some African-American members of our Special Forces at Ft. Bragg. They are special forces. They do not deserve to have swastikas on their doors.

For anybody who's ever been on the other end of, like, racial violence logic is not something that can be used.

One thing I do know, you can't change hatred by showing those people that they're wrong about us.

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

I do not think that any man should be attacked because of his race or religion, or that he should be immune from attack because of race or religion.

South Africa used to seem so far away. Then it came home to me. It began to signify the meaning of white hatred here. That was what the sheets and the suits and the ties covered up, not very well. That was what the cowardly guys calling me names from their speeding truck wanted to happen to me, to all of me: to my people. That was what would happen to me if I walked around the corner into the wrong neighborhood. That was Birmingham. That was Brooklyn. That was Reagan. That was the end of reason. South Africa was how I came to understand that I am not against war; I am against losing the war.

I believe racism has killed more people than speed, heroin, or cancer, and will continue to kill until it is no more.

Religious and racial persecution is moronic at all times, perhaps the most idiotic of human stupidities.

America has allowed white people to kill and brutalize those they don't like.

It is quite normal to be racist, but it is criminal to remain one.

We have seen a man dragged to death in Texas simply because he was black. A young man murdered in Wyoming simply because he was gay. In the last year alone, we've seen the shootings of African Americans, Asian Americans, and Jewish children simply because of who they were. This is not the American way. We must draw the line. Without delay, we must pass the Hate Crimes Prevention Act and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. And we should reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act.

Prejudice will fall in a combat with interest.