Marjorie Liu Quotes

It's a real uphill challenge to battle the white-guyness.

My parents told me in the very beginning as a young child when I raised the question about segregation and racial discrimination, they told me not to get in the way, not to get in trouble, not to make any noise.

I would have been completely brainwashed by this lopsided and racist view of the world if it weren't for my father. He was a deep thinker and an irrepressible problem solver. He was a Black Socrates, asking why and then spoiling ready-made replies.

Racial bias does exist, and until we can all admit its existence and become introspective as to whether our own personal biases are impacting how we deal with others, there will be no change.

I am not obliged to tackle racism wherever and whenever it occurs, nor am I qualified to do so.

You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about.

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.

Any deviation is looked upon as a perversion, is feared, and is usually a target of hatred and prejudice.

They taught me different was wrong.

I was fortunate enough to have been raised to a certain point before I got into the race thing. I had other views of what a human is, so I was never able to see racism as the big question. Racism was horrendous, but there were other aspects to life.

I don't think the job of the antiracist is to convert the far-out heathen racist, or give them their 'come to Jesus' moment, as it's called. They'll either have those or they won't, and usually, when they have them, it's not because of something someone said per se; it's because of some life crisis that makes them rethink.

The whole issue of race and discrimination is a moral issue.

When you discuss racism, it's almost a no-win scenario - but I don't think that means we shouldn't be discussing it.

It never occurred to me that some people were seen as wrong or even different.

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

If you're white working with non-white people, you will be branded as a colonialist by some people, regardless of your efforts or intentions.

I'm someone very interested in diversity, equity, social justice, and getting rid of white supremacy.

It's hard for men sometimes to talk about feminism, just as it's hard for people who aren't from ethnic minorities to talk about racial prejudice. It's a difficult conversation to have, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have it.

Racism is something that is taught. We, as a people, need to work to get past that.

Color had been made the mark of enslavement and was taken to be also the mark of inferiority; for prejudice does not reason, or it would not be prejudice

… we clung to the belief... that our white skin made us "better" than all other people. And this belief comforted us, for we felt worthless and weak when confronted with authorities who had cheapened nearly all we held dear, except our skin color. There, in the land of Epidermis, every one of us was a little king.

You've got to be taught To hate and fear, You've got to be taught From year to year It's got to be drummed In your dear little ear You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade, You've got to be carefully taught. You've got to be taught before it's too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You've got to be carefully taught!

I suggest that what has happened to the white Southerner is in some ways much worse than what has happened to the Negroes there ... One has to assume that he is a man like me, but he does not know what drives him to use the club, to menace with a gun, and to use a cattle prod against a woman's breasts ... Their moral lives have been destroyed by a plague called color.

I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be “accepted” by white people, still less to be loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on the planet.

I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.