Racism Toni Morrison Quotes & Sayings

Sexist language, racist language, theistic language - all are typical of the policing languages of mastery, and cannot, do not, permit new knowledge or encourage the mutual exchange of ideas. — Toni Morrison

Lord, I pray You would strengthen my faith so that I will not give up praying in the heat of the battle of opposition from the enemy. I realize the very next prayer I pray may be the one to bring total deliverance from the strongholds the enemy is trying to erect in my life. Enable me to stand strong in prayer and worship, giving thanks for Your presence and delivering power. — Stormie O'martian

seemed like small potatoes. — Lemony Snicket

Hard, fast. He fucked me as if he hated me, but the words spilling out were nothing but love. — Alessandra Torre

If I hadn't trained Lula Ann properly she wouldn't have known to always cross the street and avoid white boys. — Toni Morrison

There is no such things as race," said Morrison. "Racism is a construct; a social construct. And it has benefits. Money can be made off of it. People who don't like themselves can feel better because of it. It can describe certain kinds of behavior that are wrong or misleading. So [racism] has a social function. But race can only be defined as a human being — Toni Morrison

Long ago, before I met her, she twisted her blond hair into dreadlocks and, pretty as she is, the locks add an allure she wouldn't otherwise have. — Toni Morrison

My voyage was never a well-conceived plan, nor will it ever be. I have made it up as I went along. — Jimmy Buffett

Yeah, says the Newsday reporter, he's a real pacifist. He's the Gandhi of Gangsters. — J.R. Moehringer

"The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams."
-Oprah Winfrey- — David DeBacco

I know it sounds really weedy, but we are all children who seek approval from our parents. — Gurinder Chadha

We have progressed in a technological sense, but I'm not so sure whether we have progressed in a civilizational matter - the quality of the civilization has not improved. It's a civilization that's in love with technology but forgetting about the human side of it and the destructive tendency in human civilization has not been faced. — Laszlo Nemes

I sold my elegant blackness to all those childhood ghosts and now they pay me for it. — Toni Morrison

That anybody white could take your whole self for anything that came to mind. Not just work, kill, or maim you, but dirty you so bad you forgot who you were and couldn't think it up. And though she and others lived through and got over it, she could never let it happen to her own. — Toni Morrison

The race thing is sort of a misnomer. It's just the human race, right? That's it. The rest of it, and racism, is socially constructed. Nobody is born racist, no one. What happens is other things that are usually based on power, money, feeling good about yourself, or bad about yourself, those things play into hating other people for whatever reason. — Toni Morrison

Nobody loves the head of a dandelion. Maybe because they are so many, strong, and soon. — Toni Morrison

If you take racism away from certain people - I mean vitriolic racism as well as the sort of social racist - if you take that away, they may have to face something really terrible - misery, self-misery, and deep pain about who they are. — Toni Morrison

It comforts everybody to think of all Negroes as dirt poor, and to regard those who were not, who earned good money and kept it, as some kind of shameful miracle. White people liked that idea because Negroes with money and sense made them nervous. Colored people liked it because, in those days, they trusted poverty, believed it was a virtue and a sure sign of honesty. Too much money had a whiff of evil and somebody else's blood. — Toni Morrison

This means the world to me That you guys are here celebrating with me. Thank you. Thank you. I can't express it enough. — Kevin Durant

The Koran did not invent or introduce patriarchy. — Muhammad Khalid Masud

There is no such thing as race. None. There is just a human race
scientifically, anthropologically. Racism is a construct, a social construct ... it has a social function, racism. — Toni Morrison

I like thieves. Some of my best friends are thieves. Why, just last week we had the president of the bank over for dinner. — W.C. Fields

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate. — Toni Morrison

I had a brain cancer specialist sit in my living room and tell me that he would never take radiation if he had a brain tumor. And I asked him, 'but, do you send people for radiation?' and he said, of course. 'I'd be drummed out of the hospital if I didn't. — Ralph W. Moss

A child. New life. Immune to evil or illness, protected from kidnap, beatings, rape, racism, insult, hurt, self-loathing, abandonment. Error-free. All goodness. Minus wrath. So they believe. — Toni Morrison

Where was the lecture on how slavery alone catapulted the whole country from agriculture into the industrial age in two decades? White folks' hatred, their violence, was the gasoline that kept the profit motors running. — Toni Morrison

I'm totally down with insurrection in the street. I've had a great time with that over the years. Insurrection in the voting booth is the other part of the equation. — Jello Biafra

Satan has his sights on the United States of America! — Rick Santorum

Here was an ugly little girl asking for beauty ... A little black girl who wanted to rise up out of the pit of her blackness and see the world with blue eyes. His outrage grew and felt like power. For the first time he honestly wished he could work miracles. — Toni Morrison

Color is gradually applied, or layered, dark to light (on a white or light-colored surface), building increasingly complex values, hues and textures. Although every colored pencil type works well with layering, harder pencils have a slight edge over the softer varieties because the points maintain their sharpness longer. — Gary Greene

The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn't shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing. — Toni Morrison