Race & Ethnicity
Page 6
- And on a strategic note, Miss Cottle: before we enter the 2016 election cycle and the feminists come asking black women for our support for your candidate, you might want to read up a bit on black women and our feminism. I can send you a syllabus.
- Even here in America, we felt the cool, refreshing breeze of freedom when Nelson Mandela took the seat of Presidency in his country where formerly he was not even allowed to vote. We were enlarged by tears of pride as we saw Nelson Mandela’s former prison guards invited, courteously, by him to watch from the front rows his inauguration.
- And in a year that saw the internet invalidating the issues of women of color, excluding them from important conversations about feminism, and - frankly - excluding them from feminism period (remember @Karynthia’s #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen and Michelle Cottle’s FLOTUS is a Feminist Nightmare), Beyonce came through with the power of Jesus Christ himself and did quite the opposite on a public stage.
- Dr. [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] had many other goals - many other more transcendent, non-racial, policy goals. Goals that apply to white people too. Like ending poverty, reducing the war aspects of our foreign policy, promoting the New Deal goal of universal employment, and so on. But his main accomplishment was ending 200
years of racial terrorism by getting black people to confront their fears... That is what Dr. King did. Not march, not give good speeches. He crisscrossed the south organizing people, helping them not be afraid, and encouraging them - like Gandhi did in India - to take the beating that they had been trying to avoid all their lives. Once the beating was over, we were free.
- So what have we learned today that we didn’t already know? Nothing. We learned that the Academy Awards is racist. It always has been. 94% of the voting members of the academy are white. So both the Lone Ranger and Alone yet not Alone feed into the colonial fantasy BS that dominates hollywood stories about Indians.
- In an interview, former vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said he does not have a racist bone in his body. However, he admitted he has three sexist bones and his spine is homophobic.
- 50 years later we need to have a conversation…not just about civil rights, C-I-V-I-L, but about silver rights, S-I-L-V-E-R. That is to say: economic rights, economic freedoms. Black folk lag behind in every leading economic category 50 years later, even in the Obama era. And the bottom line is this: if you don’t have economic freedom, you really ain’t free.
- If you come to me and say, ‘Hey look I'm a racist,’ or ‘I discriminate against blacks,’ or ‘I don't like you because you're African American,’ I respect that. I can respect you more by doing that. But don't smile in my face, shake my hand, and then you don't really respect me, or want me to be around, or come to your games as the owner of the Clippers.
- L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling was recorded on tape making racist comments. He now has been banned from the league for life. Great, just where Sterling wanted to end up – the blacklist.
- These days, the House Republicans actually give John Boehner a harder time than they give me. Which means orange really is the new black.
- Calling a white male 'privileged' in a country with such a clear history and continuing pattern of preference for white males is about as wrong as calling a rich person 'advantaged' in a capitalist society. The word privilege isn’t a negative judgment about [Tal] Fortgang or his character, but simply a recognition that our society’s institutionalized racism and sexism isn’t aimed at white males.
- If I see a black kid in a hoodie and it’s late at night, I’m walking to the other side of the street. And if on that side of the street, there’s a guy that has tattoos all over his face - white guy, bald head, tattoos everywhere - I’m walking back to the other side of the street…While we all have our prejudices and bigotries, we have to learn that it’s an issue that we have to control…