White quotes
4.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside white — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"People had a habit of looking at me as if I were some kind of mirror instead of a person. They didn't see me, they saw their own lewd thoughts, then they white-masked themselves by calling me the lewd one."
"That's unfortunately common - to blame immigrants, to blame the African-Americans who are being helped by federal programs, to blame anyone available, to direct attention away from the roots of the distress which you're suffering. This combines with xenophobia, white supremacy, racism, misogyny, and other quite unpleasant phenomena which are far from being eradicated. All of this makes for a pretty dangerous brew. But economic issues are right in the center of it. And you can see this in the fact that so many former Obama voters now voted for Trump, or just didn't bother voting."
"So, lively brisk old fellow, don't let age get you down. White hairs or not, you can still be a lover."
"Lately... Americans have begun to understand that trouble does not start somewhere on the other side of town. It seems to originate inside the absolute middle of the homemade cherry pie. In our history, the state has failed to respond to the weak. You could be white, male, Presbyterian and heterosexual besides, but if you get fired or if you get sick tomorrow, you might as well be Black, for all the state will want to hear from you."
"When we ask Negroes to abide by the law, let us also declare that the white man does not abide by law in the ghettos. Day in and day out he violates welfare laws to deprive the poor of their meager allotments; he flagrantly violates building codes and regulations; his police make a mockery of law; he violates laws on equal employment and education and the provisions of civil services. The slums are the handiwork of a vicious system of the white society; Negroes live in them, but they do not make them, any more than a prisoner makes a prison."
"Why is it so hard for people to believe that white people are poor?! I wouldn't say I lived in a ghetto, I'd say I lived in the 'hood. The same friends I had back then are the same people on tour with me now."
"Black cat or white cat: If it can catch mice, it's a good cat"
"The denial of our duty to act in this case is a denial of our right to act; and if we have no right to act, then may we well be termed the white slaves of the North, for like our brethren in bonds, we must seal our lips in silence and despair."
"In the real world there are many tones, from white at one extreme, through a large number of medium tones to black at the other extreme. To achieve a three-dimensional effect on paper you need just three - white, black and medium gray."
"If you see a black family, it's looting, but if it's a white family they are looking for food."
"We were truly all the same (brothers) - because their belief in one God had removed the white from their minds, the white from their behavior, and the white from their attitude."
"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination."
"I feel like Barack Obama's an Illuminati puppet. He's basically dragged this country down into the worst it's ever been. Like I say about the White House, 'You've built this house of shame'. Everybody looked up at the White House and America and now I think it's like a house of shame. I miss the old days when people were proud to be American."
"Emmett Till and I were about the same age. A week after he was murdered... I stood on a corner with a gang of boys, looking at pictures of him in the black newspapers and magazines. In one, he was laughing and happy. In the other, his head was swollen and bashed in, his eyes bulging out of their sockets, and his mouth twisted and broken... I couldn't get Emmett Till out of my mind, until one evening I thought of a way to get back at white people for his death."
"Often in my lectures when I use the phrase “imperialist white-supremacist capitalist patriarchy” to describe our nation’s political system, audiences laugh. No one has ever explained why accurately naming this system is funny. The laughter is itself a weapon of patriarchal terrorism."
"As, pricked out with less and greater lights, between the poles of the universe, the Milky Way so gleameth white as to set very sages questioning."
"The blankets had fallen off and I stared down at her white back, the shoulder blades sticking out as if they wanted to grow into wings, poke through that skin. Little blades. She was helpless."
"I'm albino, my family is white, but I was really raised, and taught my important life lessons, by the black community."
"The families of Aboriginals who have died in custody in NSW will suffer again because of these white lies."
"No one ever talks about the moment you found that you were white. Or the moment you found out you were black. That's a profound revelation. The minute you find that out, something happens. You have to renegotiate everything."
