Ibram Kendi Quotes & Sayings

Secularism is categorically not saying that the religious may not speak out publicly or have a say in public life. It is about saying that religion alone should not confer a privileged say in public life, or greater influence on it. It really is as simple as that. — Richard Dawkins

ON JUNE 25, 1890, W. E. B. Du Bois spoke at his Harvard graduation ceremony. He had now excelled, and had graduated from the most prestigious historically Black college and the most prestigious historically White college in the United States. He felt he was showing off the capability of his race. Du Bois's "brilliant and eloquent address," as judged by the reporters, was on "Jefferson Davis as Representative of Civilization." In Du Bois's rendering, Jefferson Davis, who had died the year before, represented the rugged individualism and domineering European civilization, in contrast to the rugged "submission" and selflessness of African civilization. The European "met civilization and crushed it," Du Bois concluded. "The Negro met civilization and was crushed by it." According to Du Bois's biographer, the Harvard graduate contrasted the civilized European "Strong Man" to the civilized African "Submissive Man."5 — Ibram X. Kendi

Inspiration is the tool God uses to communicate with humans. If God didn't exist, there would be no creativity or inventions in the world. — Robin Sacredfire

some British settlers of colonial America carried across the sea Puritan, biblical, scientific, and Aristotelian rationalizations of slavery and human hierarchy. — Ibram X. Kendi

He had a lot of muscle and a skill level somewhere between Batman and Rambo. — Janet Evanovich

Time and again, racist ideas have not been cooked up from the boiling pot of ignorance and hate. Time and again, powerful and brilliant men and women have produced racist ideas in order to justify the racist policies of their era, in order to redirect the blame for their era's racial disparities away from those policies and onto Black people. — Ibram X. Kendi

When we start building perceptions based on our own experiences and judgements and not by the influence of fake media reports, that's the indication of our transformation into a mature society. — Sukant Ratnakar

Ligon's distinction between making "a Christian a slave" and "a slave a Christian" turned this idea on its head. — Ibram X. Kendi

In Mexico you have death very close. That's true for all human beings because it's a part of life, but in Mexico, death can be found in many things. — Gael Garcia Bernal

I used to have a saying that when a player is at his peak, he feels as though he can climb. — Alex Ferguson

My singing led into acting, and that is how I discovered acting. — Lalaine

The first major debate between racists had invaded the English discourse. This argument about the cause of inferior Blackness - curse or climate, nature or nurture - would rage for decades, and eventually influence settlers to America. Curse theorists were the first known segregationists. They believed that Black people were naturally and permanently inferior, and totally incapable of becoming White. Climate theorists were the first known assimilationists, believing Black people had been nurtured by the hot sun into a temporary inferiority, but were capable of becoming White if they moved to a cooler climate. — Ibram X. Kendi

Illusion throughout is illusion. There is no end to it, just as there is no end to imagination. — Meher Baba

Let me get this straight. A mentally ill madman goes on a shooting spree to assassinate a United States Congressperson ... and the lesson learned by liberals is that guns must be taken away from law-abiding citizens? Really? What's the connection between a mentally ill nutcase and perfectly sane, responsible people? There is none. — Wayne Allyn Root

When she closed the door, she took the happiness with her. — Nalini Singh

Nearly every English speaker interested in Africa read Stanley's Through the Dark Continent (1878), and nearly everyone who read Stanley came away viewing African people as savages, including novelist Joseph Conrad, who authored the classic Heart of Darkness in 1899. The White character's journey up the Congo River "was like traveling back to the earliest beginning of the world" - not back in chronological time, but back in evolutionary time.2 — Ibram X. Kendi