Clarence Thomas Quotes

Race is a universal flaw in humanity. So yes, I've been in many situations where I've felt like the outsider because of the color of my skin.

Racism is not merely a simplistic hatred. It is, more often, broad sympathy toward some and broader skepticism toward others.

Racism does not have a good track record. It's been tried out for a long time and you'd think by now we'd want to put an end to it instead of putting it under new management.

A greater truth that I think we are faced with on a day-to-day basis as minorities is: We are the color of skin first and people second.

racism is alive and doing too well in America.

They don't let many black people in the governor's mansion in Alabama, unless they're cleaning.

Ralph Bunche, who is an internationally recognized and respected diplomat, can't stay in a hotel in Georgia, which means that no matter what the accomplishment, the intellectual, the academic, or professional level of a negro is, collectively he stands condemned.

Now, personally, I am baffled by the concept of racial prejudice. Why hate someone based on the color of their skin when, if you take the time to get to know them as a human being, you can find so many other things to hate them for?

All my life had been dominated by a sign, often invisible but no less real for that, which said: 'Reserved for Europeans Only.'

Society cannot continue to disable themselves through their need to categorize people or make assumptions as to another individual's abilities.

There are still courses in the United States that I am not allowed to play because of the color of my skin.

I appeal for Caucasian unity. I appeal for the imperial destiny of our mighty race. This is our country. We made it. We molded it. We control it, and we always will. We have done great things. We have mighty things yet to do. The negro is an accident - an unwilling, a blameless, but an unwholesome, unwelcome, helpless, unassimilable element in our civilization. He is not made for our times. He is not framed to share in the duty and the destiny which he perplexes and beclouds. Let us put him kindly and humanly out of the way. Let us give him a better chance than he has ever had in history, and let us have done with him.

The Negro is the same as any other minority group he is clannish and tends to select neighbors who are of the same background and race. Unless other builders opened housing to all, I could not afford the decline in sales that would result if Negroes enjoyed equal access to my houses.

Previously, prejudices were personalized and individualized: FHA exhorted segregation and enshrined it as public policy. Whole areas of cities were declared ineligible for loan guarantees.

I don't know what white people in America feel about blacks. I can only infer it from their institutions. I don't know if white Christians hate negroes, but they do not invite us to their churches. I do not know that white labor unions hate blacks, but they will not admit us. I do not know if the white educators hate us, but they do not allow us in their schools, and they do not teach us very well in the schools they do give us.

Even as my father grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, signs told him: 'No Irish Need Apply.'

The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason.

I know 100 percent what it's like to have people tell you that you can't hold an office because of your color, and to have people vote based on that belief.

You cannot be responsible for Jim Crow. You can not be responsible for racism. This is much more a problem for the person exercising racism.You are confronted with the reality of racism when you go in the streets, when the eyes of others come upon you. [James] Baldwin goes back with you to all the experiences you went through and gives a name to them, and explains why it is like this.

But the color of a Negro's skin makes him easily recognizable, makes him suspect, converts him into a defenseless target

Why hate someone for the color of their skin when there are much better reasons to hate them?

People want to say there isn't racial profiling at the airport, but let's be honest. If you first name is Mohammed, and your last name isn't Ali, leave a little extra time.

I think everyone should understand history of segregation the same way we had to go to school and read about George Washington. I believe this generation should know their history and they should know that the struggle's not over yet. For instance, you can't get the cover of a magazine if your skin is too dark.

If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it's late at night, I'm walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there's a guy that has tattoos all over his face, white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere, I'm walking back to the other side of the street, and the list goes on of stereotypes that we all live up to and are fearful of.