Racial Unrest Quotes & Sayings

To begin with our knowledge grows in spots..What you first gain, ... is probably a small amount of new information, a few new definitions, or distinctions, or points of view. But while these special ideas are being added, the rest of your knowledge stands still, and only gradually will you line up your previous opinions with the novelties I am trying to instill, and to modify to some slight degree their mass..Your mind in such processes is strained, and sometimes painfully so, between its older beliefs and the novelties which experience brings along. — William James

If you young fellows were wise, the devil couldn't do anything to you, but since you aren't wise, you need us who are old. — Martin Luther

Kerner Commission, appointed to examine the causes of racial unrest during the long, hot summer of 1967. Their report pulled no punches: the cause of the rioting was white racism, — Ken Follett

Hoover's growing obsession with what he believed was communism's malignant influence on African Americans stands out in his August 3, 1943, letter to the White House, which he filled with unsubstantiated rumors about racial unrest in the nation's capital. Quoting several confidential informants, Hoover warned of a marked uptick in communist-inspired agitation among Washington's "less desirable colored element." These included, one informant claimed, "younger negroes between the ages of 16 and 18 years old who are not in the Army and who have shown an insolent attitude that they will take nothing from anyone. — Mark A. Bradley

[W]hen nations crumble, they often crack along racial or ethnic lines, and there's no reason why it won't happen here, but since racial hatred is as barbaric as they come, I don't wish to live long enough to witness this catastrophe. From 1882 to 1968, white mobs lynched 539 blacks in Mississippi alone, the most in the entire nation, but now, there are white groups who keep tabs on the staggering number of black-on-white murders, maimings, rapes and recreational assaults. Seeing their share of the population decreasing relentlessly, they speak of a white genocide. As for the elites, though they don't welcome social unrest, since it's bad for business, they will benefit from increasing racial animosity since it distracts from the serial crimes they're inflicting on us all. — Linh Dinh

To a surprising conclusion about this moment in our lives. No, it's not that there are weird freckly spots on the back of our hands, although there are, or that construction guys don't make smutty comments as we pass, although they don't. It's that we've done a pretty good job of becoming ourselves, and that this is, in so many ways, the time of our lives. As Carly Simon once sang, "These are the good old days." Lots of candles, plenty of cake. I wouldn't be twenty-five again on a bet, or even forty. — Anna Quindlen

Some said America took a step forward electing a black president. In light of the unconstitutiona l expansion of powers, lack of transparency and fueling the fires of unrest that clearly hasn't been the case. Vote based on merits, not to fill a racial quota. — Denzel Washington

Less reasoning when be too sure. — Toba Beta

An audience is the most dangerous thing in the world, because they paid, and they're looking at you. And they paid! And there's a lot of them! And they cast a cold eye, because they paid. To be on the stage, you have to be very secure. — Christopher Walken