"In America there is institutional racism that we all inherit and participate in, like breathing the air in this room - and we have to become sensitive to it."
"I think that the roots of racism have always been economic, and I think people are desperate and scared. And when you're desperate and scared you scapegoat people. It exacerbates latent tendencies toward - well, toward racism or homophobia or anti-Semitism."
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Source: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Tavis Smiley Show, www.pbs.org. March 19, 2008.
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