Jane Elliott Quotes & Sayings

I am absolutely opposed to political correctness. You cannot confront hate speech until you've experienced it. You need to hear every side of the issue instead of just one. — Jane Elliott

The flowers of the forest are a' wide awae. — Jane Elliott

If you have been a slave all your life, used to being ordered about and abused from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep, it's impossible to adjust to normal life overnight. I had never been free to make my own decisions before and had no idea how to do it. I was like a bird that has been bred in captivity suddenly being released into the wild: I fell apart. — Jane Elliott

When you say to a person of colour, 'When I see you, I don't see you Black; I just see everybody the same' think about that. You don't have the right to say to a person, 'I do not see you as you are; I want to see you as I would be more comfortable seeing you.' — Jane Elliott

To sit back and do nothing is to cooperate with the oppressor. — Jane Elliott

This country isn't a melting pot. Think of this country as a stir fry. That's what this country should be. A place where people are appreciated for who they are. — Jane Elliott

Racism is a learned affliction and anything that is learned can be unlearned — Jane Elliott

450,000 Iraqi children have died from starvation and lack of medicine as a result of our embargo. If you believe God loves little children - and hundreds of thousands more Iraqi children will die if there is war - you have to believe that God will judge us very harshly for this. — Jane Elliott

We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them. — Jane Elliott

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. — Jane Elliott

We don't know anything about racism. We've never experienced it. If words can make a difference in your life for seven minutes, how would it affect you if you heard this every day of your life? — Jane Elliott

White people's number one freedom, in the United States of America, is the freedom to be totally ignorant of those who are other than white. We don't have to learn about those who are other than white. And our number two freedom is the freedom to deny that we're ignorant. — Jane Elliott

We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Racism is not genetical. It has everything to do with power. — Jane Elliott