Harvey Fierstein Quotes

It really bothers me when people say we live in a postracial America.

This whole notion of a post racial America was nonsense from the very beginning. It was a bad idea, a bad notion, a bad formulation when it was first raised.

It's hard to say when or if we will actually arrive at that place called 'post-racial', or, better yet, post-racism.

We're not so much anti-black as we are pro-white.

As a black man, sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing has underlying bigotry, or it's a normal conversation and you're being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when its not there.

I think we are aware that post-racialism isn't real, right? I mean, I hope so. I kind of joke that we're post-post-racial.

I think sports is one of the places where race plays itself out publicly. Although we pretend it doesn't.

Racism cannot be cured solely by attacking some of the results it produces, like discrimination in housing or in education.

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

In spite of what some people claim, we are not in a post-racial era. I think it's still an important issue to bring up.

If white America is ready to extend complete democratic rights to colored people, there will be no race, no racial tension and no racial prejudice on either side, but we can be sure that any movement 'back to normalcy' in race relations will be bitterly resisted by colored people. It is now up to white America to make its choice...

The issue of race could benefit from a period of benign neglect.

The scars and stains of racism are still deeply embedded in the American society.

Racism exists everywhere. So when people act surprised about racism, I'm the one that's surprised.

The most anyone could reasonably say about institutional racism is that the 'evidence is far from conclusive.

I think race in America is a huge one. That's something that needs to be confronted, certainly.

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

I grew up in a predominantly white community - Hinsdale, Illinois - and given that, I feel blessed because I could still count my experiences with blatant racism on two hands. I thought racism was the substitute teacher picking on you because she assumes that you're a delinquent, and she doesn't know you have the highest score in the class.

Race is a factor in everything.

It's much easier to talk about racism when you're able to use mutants as a metaphor. People would much rather talk about Charles Xavier and Magneto than they would about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.

The mainstream media choose to flaunt story lines that make white America appear guilty of continued institutional racism, while black racism against whites is ignored as an acceptable disposition given our nation's history.

It is a lie that America is racist

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

If whiteness were of no particular advantage, then having a fuller color wheel of skin tones would be purely a matter of celebration. But whiteness - just a drop of it - does still carry privilege. You learn that very young in America.

I don't think many people understand what racism is. The intellectuals use it like toilet paper; it's something they can use. It's not something they live.