Racism For Kids Quotes & Sayings

As someone who was gay bashed as a kid, I learned firsthand how a lot of people only feel good about themselves when they sense that someone or something is on a lower rung than they are. This inferiority complex drives racism and sexism as well as outdated attitudes about animals. — Dan Mathews

One night, I was out driving with a few friends of mine when the police pulled us over. We were told we fit the description of someone who had committed a robbery or stolen a car, though I don't really know what kind of description that could have been: three black kids in a Hyundai blasting U2's Joshua Tree on their way back from Bible study? — Ahmir Questlove Thompson

Racism, Dr. Sam. I worry for my kids about racism. Racism doesn't appear to take holidays or time off. What can I do about this stuff? — Allan Dare Pearce

I talked a lot early on in my career about intersectionality and how racism and classism and sexism and homophobia and capitalism are all connected with each other, and they're these crazy systems that are feeding on each other and are also damaging. I can't even go into the whole spectrum of it. But I feel like kids today are so much more savvy about that conversation. And I'm so thrilled when I get to meet younger people who are doing that so much better than I did. — Kathleen Hanna

I'm actually more comfortable playing the stroke victim or the girl with no makeup on, looking scruffy and it's all about what's going on inside rather than on the outside. — Nicollette Sheridan

While at the University of Chicago a couple of friends and I went to dinner at some restaurant in China Town night. Oblivious to the fact that my idiocy can be heard outside of a five-foot radius, I started in with the "You been here four hour. You go now," routine. Ha ha, we all laugh because infantile racism is funny. A little while later I walked back to the bathroom, and as I went down the hall to the "Male Room," I passed this rickety open door. I peered in to see two little Chinese kids looking at me, holding their eyes wide open with their fingers (to give a Caucasian look), and saying: "Hot Dogs! Baseball! Hot Dogs! Baseball!" I laughed so hard, I almost didn't make it to the bathroom. You win this round, Chinese kids. — Tucker Max

If you know you are right, stay the course even though the whole world seems to be against you and everyone you know questions your judgment. When you prevail
and you eventually will if you stick to the job
they will all tell you that they knew all along you could do it. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And in "Elbow Room" the cast sings the glories of westward expansion in the United States, which involved the murder of native peoples and the violent conquest of half of Mexico. Among the lines in the song is one that intones, "There were plenty of fights / To win land right / But the West was meant to be / It was our Manifest Destiny?" Let it suffice to say that happily belting out a tune in which one merrily praises genocide is always easier for those whose ancestors weren't on the receiving end of the deal. — Tim Wise

she thought of the mix of kids in her class and in Melissa's and she knew that the future could be bright. No one had tried to say she didn't have a right to be in that school, or acted interested in who her ancestors were, but they had been interested in who she was and where she had moved from. They wanted to know what she did and wore and liked. — Dixie Dawn Miller Goode

The races are like America's children. White people are the firstborn, so they were Dad's favorite. Black people are the second kids, the abused ones, so they still hate Dad. Latinos are the third, caught in the middle and always trying to make peace between the other siblings. Asians are the youngest, and get good marks in school, but basically are just trying to keep their heads down and not get involved. And Native Americans are the old uncle who owns a house and everyone else in the family was like, "He's not using that! Let's move in! — Colin Quinn

We don't come out of the womb filled with prejudice, racism, and homophobia. Kids are taught to hate, so we have to protect our young people's minds from those evils. — Kerry Washington

When I was a kid growing up in New York, I was pretty unaware of racism. I think when we're young - before we lose our innocence - we're sort of unaware of the more flawed qualities of each other. — Dave Matthews

Sure, I've felt racism. I think everybody has prejudice. When I was growing up, the dark Mexican kids weren't allowed in the public swimming pool in Dallas. My light-skinned friend got in, and he laughed at us. It didn't seem like a big deal, because we didn't know any different. So I never ran into anything that actually scarred me. — Lee Trevino

That feeling of hopelessness and racism has been looming over Detroit ever since I was a kid. — Robert Hood

Then she wonders why a part of her is trying to find value in degradation. — N.K. Jemisin

Kids know nothing about racism. They're taught that by adults. — Ruby Bridges

The drug war has nothing to do with making communities livable or creating a decent future for black kids. On the contrary, prohibition is directly responsible for the power of crack dealers to terrorize whole neighborhoods. And every cent spent on the cops, investigators, bureaucrats, courts, jails, weapons, and tests required to feed the drug-war machine is a cent not spent on reversing the social policies that have destroyed the cities, nourished racism, and laid the groundwork for crack culture. — Ellen Willis

Humility is like underwear; essential, but indecent if it shows. — Helen Nielsen

Tony Awards boost Broadway attendance and sell the shows on the road. They're the sugar to swat the fly. If you needed more explanation for the yearly ballyhoo, in the metropolitan areas where a Broadway show plays, the local economy is boosted by three and a half times the gross ticket sales. So when we're talking Tonys, we're talking moolah. — John Lahr

There's an inexplicable joy that exists on a brown child's face and in the way they navigate their world long before they discover they're hated. — Darnell Lamont Walker

Explain to me what loving feels like, Beth. I want to understand. — Jennifer Ashley

Could dump two Chinee down in one of our maria and they would get rich selling rocks to each other while raising twelve kids. Then a Hindu would sell retail stuff he got from them wholesale
below cost at a fat profit. We got along. — Robert A. Heinlein

It was stupid not to let MacArthur finish off those rice eaters. Push 'em back. — H. G. Bissinger

One of the funny things about the racism of the system, when I started 30 years ago, I'm in an area called Koreatown and most of the kids were Asian. And when the kids did well, people said, "Well, of course, they did well. They're Asians." But when we had this huge influx of Latino children from Central America, they said, "Oh, you're gonna have problems now." — Rafe Esquith

Whatever happens ... men, women and children have to be prepared to put other people first and thereby create the miracle of the species which is people living together in harmony and putting other people first, before themselves. — Bob Maguire

Kids in North Lawndale need not be confused about their prospects: Cook County's Juvenile Temporary Detention Center sits directly adjacent to the neighborhood. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

Stop saying you're not racist because you have a friend that's black. That's like saying you're not a pedophile because you have a friend that's a kid. — Daniel Tosh

Never stop listening to your audience. — David Copperfield

God's blessing is not always to be distinguished from His wrath. — Joyce Carol Oates

All through dinner Arturo and I held hands under the table like a couple of kids, and that made the dinner quite wonderful, even though Mrs. Fletcher kept staring at Olivia as though committing her to memory. It got so bad that Olivia turned to her husband and said: Has it happened at last, Gerald? Have I become a curiosity? — Helen Oyeyemi

If we talk about the environment, for example, we have to talk about environmental racism - about the fact that kids in South Central Los Angeles have a third of the lung capacity of kids in Santa Monica. — Danny Glover

Speak out, educate, do not be intimidated by the apologists, and do not let extreme racism be mainstreamed. Hopefully there will come a time when we don't need to tell our kids that Halloween is no excuse for hate, and that blackface has no place in a civilized society. — Christine Pelosi

I did not direct any of my investments nor did I know of these investments. — Mitt Romney

The police can go to downtown Harlem and pick up a kid with a joint in the streets. But they can't go into the elegant apartments and get a stockbroker who's sniffing cocaine. — Noam Chomsky

but racism is about the power of a group and in America it's white folks who have that power. How? Well, white folks don't get treated like shit in upper-class African-American communities and white folks don't get denied bank loans or mortgages precisely because they are white and black juries don't give white criminals worse sentences than black criminals for the same crime and black police officers don't stop white folk for driving while white and black companies don't choose not to hire somebody because their name sounds white and black teachers don't tell white kids that they're not smart enough to be doctors and black politicians don't try some tricks to reduce the voting power of white folks through gerrymandering and advertising agencies don't say they can't use white models to advertise glamorous products because they are not considered "aspirational" by the "mainstream." So — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

So, in "Melting Pot" the children (about a third of whom were kids of color) sang the line, "America was the new world and Europe was the old," in one stroke eradicating the narratives of indigenous persons for whom America was hardly new, and any nonwhite kids whose old worlds had been in Africa or Asia, not Europe. — Tim Wise

...I would much rather my kids leave my class with the strength of character and courage to fight racism when they find it, than have memorized some facts about the Civil Rights Act of 1964. I'm not saying you can't have both, I'm just pointing out that only one of those things will be measured on the test - and it isn't the most important one. — Dave Burgess

Philanthropy without scale and sustainability is like any other bad business that will simply wither and die on the vine. — Naveen Jain