Bigotry Quotes

Arguably the most important parallel between mass incarceration and Jim Crow is that both have served to define the meaning and significance of race in America. Indeed, a primary function of any racial caste system is to define the meaning of race in its time. Slavery defined what it meant to be black (a slave), and Jim Crow defined what it meant to be black (a second-class citizen). Today mass incarceration defines the meaning of blackness in America: black people, especially black men, are criminals. That is what it means to be black.

~ Michelle Alexander

When we think of racism we think of Governor Wallace of Alabama blocking the schoolhouse door; we think of water hoses, lynchings, racial epithets, and whites only signs. These images make it easy to forget that many wonderful, goodhearted white people who were generous to others, respectful of their neighbors, and even kind to their black maids, gardeners, or shoe shiners--and wished them well--nevertheless went to the polls and voted for racial segregation... Our understanding of racism is therefore shaped by the most extreme expressions of individual bigotry, not by the way in which it functions naturally, almost invisibly (and sometimes with genuinely benign intent), when it is embedded in the structure of a social system.

~ Michelle Alexander

Parents and schoolteachers counsel black children that, if they ever hope to escape this system and avoid prison time, they must be on their best behavior, raise their arms and spread their legs for the police without complaint, stay in failing schools, pull up their pants, and refuse all forms of illegal work and moneymaking activity, even if jobs in the legal economy are impossible to find. Girls are told not to have children until they are married to a good black man who can help provide for a family with a legal job. They are told to wait and wait for Mr. Right even if that means, in a jobless ghetto, never having children at all.

~ Michelle Alexander

A new civil rights movement cannot be organized around the relics of the earlier system of control if it is to address meaningfully the racial realities of our time. Any racial justice movement, to be successful, must vigorously challenge the public consensus that underlies the prevailing system of control. Nooses, racial slurs, and overt bigotry are widely condemned by people across the political spectrum; they are understood to be remnants of the past, no longer reflective of the prevailing public consensus about race. Challenging these forms of racism is certainly necessary, as we must always remain vigilant, but it will do little to shake the foundations of the current system of control. The new caste system, unlike its predecessors, is officially colorblind. We must deal with it on its own terms.

~ Michelle Alexander

If anyone thinks interracial anything is a big deal, they're probably inbred.

~ M.b. Dallocchio

I wasn’t a person after all. I was simply this exotic thing for people to observe and investigate, an alien in any environment I was in.

~ M.b. Dallocchio

That’s what imperialism is all about, shoving your language, religion, culture, and race down others’ throats and telling them that they’re beneath you – and it’s not unique to the West either.

~ M.b. Dallocchio

The sad truth about bigotry is that most bigots either don't realize that they are bigots, or they convince themselves that their bigotry is perfectly justified.

~ Wayne Gerard Trotman

Initially, the purveyors of racism need no more than the silent acquiescence of the public ... [I]t is never too soon to confront bigotry and racism whenever, wherever, and in whatever form it raises its ugly head. It is incumbent upon all people to confront even the slightest hint of racist thought or action with zero tolerance.

~ Hans J. Massaquoi

Bigotry may be roughly defined as the anger of men who have no opinions. It is the resistance offered to definite ideas by that vague bulk of people whose ideas are indefinite to excess. Bigotry may be called the appalling frenzy of the indifferent. This frenzy of the indifferent is in truth a terrible thing; it has made all monstrous and widely pervading persecutions. In this degree it was not the people who cared who ever persecuted; the people who cared were not sufficiently numerous. It was the people who did not care who filled the world with fire and oppression. It was the hands of the indifferent that lit the faggots; it was the hands of the indifferent that turned the rack. There have come some persecutions out of the pain of a passionate certainty; but these produced, not bigotry, but fanaticism--a very different and a somewhat admirable thing. Bigotry in the main has always been the pervading omnipotence of those who do not care crushing out those who care in darkness and blood.

~ G.k. Chesterton

Prejudices, mysticism, bigotry these things only distort religion, like they have actually done to the most religions of the world.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored — it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on.

~ Pearl S. Buck

The real story is the universal one of men who destroy the souls and bodies of other men (and in the process destroy themselves) for reasons neither really understands. It is the story of the persecuted, the defrauded, the feared and detested.

~ John Howard Griffin

National hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture.

~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Readers will be swept up by the drama and fast pace of this powerful debut novel.” Reading Today Online, International Reading Association

~ Sharon Lovejoy

Lush, detailed, total-immersion storytelling.–Kirkus Review

~ Sharon Lovejoy

(Running out of Night) ...is a story that respects this pivotal era of American history, a story that reveals the pain, the courage, and the hope that eventually changed the world.–Middle Shelf : Cool Reads for Kids magazine

~ Sharon Lovejoy

Rarely do page-turners written for middle-school kids also ignite excitement in adults. (A notable exception is the series of Harry Potter books.) Fewer still explore the secret sorrows of children's lives in the mid-1800s, whether enslaved or free. Running Out of Night, a debut novel from Californian Sharon Lovejoy, a veteran author-illustrator known nationally for her prizewinning nonfiction books on gardening and nature, gives you both.–OpEd News

~ Sharon Lovejoy

An Underground Railroad story with a distinctive flavor. –Booklist

~ Sharon Lovejoy

A gripping historical novel . . . heart-stopping, heart-racing and eventually heart-easing.–Library Voice

~ Sharon Lovejoy

This book would be a great addition to a classroom library, especially considering its emphases on timeless and critical topics like discrimination and prejudice. –examiner.com, National Book Examiner

~ Sharon Lovejoy

Very different from other middle grade of YA stories I've read about slaves running during the 1800s. – Wandering Librarian

~ Sharon Lovejoy

The rural, mid-19th-century dialect, coupled with the author's interest in ethnobotany, roots the story deeply in the houses, forests, gardens, and even streambeds of antebellum Virginia. –School Library Journal

~ Sharon Lovejoy

If you think of your own mother to be the only true mother in the world and thereby start belittling people from other mothers as bastards, that makes you a bigot and a germ on the face of earth. This is an unhealthy bias, even though in your personal mental universe it may provide you extreme comfort. This is exactly what we see in the religious fundamentalists.

~ Abhijit Naskar

Some prevailing signs of social climbers are their:- ticking cunning ambition- times of deceit- hand of wickedness- gloves of bigotry- hidden bunch of schemes- cup of pride- sip of prejudice- odour of greed- grit of hatredTheir favorite hunger is comparing themselves to others. A thirst of competition with sloth, jealousy and anger at their spirits.

~ Angelica Hopes

Just as the Netherlands was the last country to abolish slavery, they are still the last one opulently celebrating racism; the English had to force the Dutch to abolish slavery in the late 19th century and now the US and the UN are forcing them to stop celebrating bigotry in the 21st century

~ Dauglas Dauglas

Information or allegations reflecting negatively on individuals or groups seen less sympathetically by the intelligentsia pass rapidly into the public domain with little scrutiny and much publicity. Two of the biggest proven hoaxes of our time have involved allegations of white men gang-raping a black woman-- first the Tawana Brawley hoax of 1987 and later the false rape charges against three Duke University students in 2006. In both cases, editorial indignation rang out across the land, without a speck of evidence to substantiate either of these charges. Moreover, the denunciations were not limited to the particular men accused, but were often extended to society at large, of whom these men were deemed to be symptoms or 'the tip of the iceberg.' In both cases, the charges fit a pre-existing vision, and that apparently made mundane facts unneces

~ Thomas Sowell

Haters and bullies are always cowards, you know. They like to pick on little guys.

~ Scylar Tyberius

No. They believe we’re dumb animals. And they won’t contradict their bigotry by listening with their own ears.

~ Ursley Kempe

He was afraid that the world struggle today was not of Communism against Fascism, but of tolerance against the bigotry that was preached equally by Communism and Fascism. But he saw too that in America the struggle was befogged by the fact that the worst Fascists were they who disowned the word “Fascism” and preached enslavement to Capitalism under the style of Constitutional and Traditional Native American Liberty. For they were thieves not only of wages but of honor. To their purpose they could quote not only Scripture but Jefferson.

~ Sinclair Lewis

And I wondered, not for the first time, what patriotism is, what the love of country truly consists of, how that yearning loyalty that had shaken my friend's voice arises, and how a real love can become, too often, so foolish and vile a bigotry. Where does it go wrong?

~ Ursula K. Le Guin

When we hide discrimination under the guise of 'religious freedom,' we make a mockery of human rights.

~ Dashanne Stokes

Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.

~ Bruce Springsteen

As you, my fans, know I’m scheduled to play in Greensboro, North Carolina this Sunday. As we also know, North Carolina has just passed HB2, which the media are referring to as the ‘bathroom’ law. HB2 — known officially as the Public Facilities Privacy and Security Act — dictates which bathrooms transgender people are permitted to use. Just as important, the law also attacks the rights of LGBT citizens to sue when their human rights are violated in the workplace.No other group of North Carolinians faces such a burden. To my mind, it’s an attempt by people who cannot stand the progress our country has made in recognizing the human rights of all of our citizens to overturn that progress. Right now, there are many groups, businesses, and individuals in North Carolina working to oppose and overcome these negative developments.Taking all of this into account, I feel that this is a time for me and the band to show solidarity for those freedom fighters. As a result, and with deepest apologies to our dedicated fans in Greensboro, we have canceled our show scheduled for Sunday, April 10th. Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them. It is the strongest means I have for raising my voice in opposition to those who continue to push us backwards instead of forwards.

~ Bruce Springsteen

Someone has said that it requires less mental effort to condemn than to think.

~ Emma Goldman

Remember this as long as you live: Whenever you meet up with anyone who is trying to cause trouble between people, anyone who tries to tell you that a man can't be a good American because he's a Catholic, or a Jew, a Protestant, or whatever, you can be pretty sure he's a rotten American himself. Not only a rotten American, but a rotten human being. Don't ever forget that.

~ Superman

Talking of appearances, I would like my future readers to know that the picture of Jim and me that Thomas Hart Benton painted on the wall of the Missouri state capitol bears not the slightest resemblance to either one of us. ... I've never been satisfied with any representation of myself and have seen only one picture of Jim that did him justice. I don't know why this should be, unless it is evidence of a nearly universal prejudice against us, instigated by Sunday school superintendents, Republicans, and bigots.

~ Norman Lock

I met two or three men who were very kind to me. There was a magistrate who couldn't stand priests, and a priest who didn't have a good word to say for magistrates; and there was a landlord who let furnished rooms by the hour and spoke highly of both priests and magistrates, because both were his best clients.

~ Pitigrilli

Beware of anyone who calls you bad names merely for asking honest questions.

~ Jim Goad

There is a wicked and pervading arrogance loose on the earth, like a rabid beast, an overdog. Does it run, does it slouch, does its name have a number? The beast preaches contempt, for that's what arrogance says: that nothing is real but itself, and the bone and blood of another's being are insubstantial as breath.

~ Kelly Cherry