The document was created for Project RADAR (Regulating AntiDiscrimination and Racism). Project number: JUST/2013/FRAC/AG/6271

1. 1
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Being vegan is easy. Are there so-
cial pressures that encourage you to
continue to eat, wear, and use animal
products? Of course there are. But
in a patriarchal, racist, homophobic,
and ableist society, there are social
pressures to participate and engage
in sexism, racism, homophobia, and
ableism.
We’ve got to face the fact that some
people say you fight fire best with fire,
but we say you put fire out best with
water. We say you don’t fight racism
with racism. We’re gonna fight racism
with solidarity.
Ignorance and prejudice are the
handmaidens of propaganda. Our
mission, therefore, is to confront ig-
norance with knowledge, bigotry with
tolerance, and isolation with the out-
stretched hand of generosity. Racism
can, will, and must be defeated.
Racist thought and action says far
more about the person they come
from than the person they are direct-
ed at.
Gary L. Francione
Fred Hampton
Kofi Annan
Chris Crutcher
Whale Talk

2. 2
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Parents and schools should place
great emphasis on the idea that it is
all right to be different. Racism and
all the other ‘isms’ grow from primi-
tive tribalism, the instinctive hostility
against those of another tribe, race,
religion, nationality, class or whatever.
You are a lucky child if your parents
taught you to accept diversity.
Racism springs from the lie that cer-
tain human beings are less than fully
human. It’s a self-centered falsehood
that corrupts our minds into believ-
ing we are right to treat others as we
would not want to be treated.
I wish I could say that racism and
prejudice were only distant memo-
ries. We must dissent from the indif-
ference. We must dissent from the
apathy. We must dissent from the
fear, the hatred and the mistrust…
Pit race against race, religion against
religion, prejudice against prejudice.
Divide and conquer! We must not let
that happen here.
Roger Ebert
Alveda King
Thurgood Marshall
Eleanor Roosevelt

3. 3
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Racism is taught in our society, it is
not automatic. It is learned behavior
toward persons with dissimilar physi-
cal characteristics.
Racism is a much more clandestine,
much more hidden kind of phenome-
non, but at the same time it’s perhaps
far more terrible than it’s ever been.
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man
- the maximum of hatred for a mini-
mum of reason.
No human race is superior; no reli-
gious faith is inferior. All collective
judgments are wrong. Only racists
make them”
Alex Haley
Angela Davis
Abraham Joshua Heschel
Eliezer Wiesel

4. 4
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
The worst moment in my life was when
I was seven years old and I discovered
that there was a thing such as racism.
You don’t know you’re different until
someone lets you know.
Simple peck-order bullying is only the
beginning of the kind of hierarchical
behavior that can lead to racism, sex-
ism, ethnocentrism, classism, and all
the other ‘isms’ that cause so much
suffering in the world.
Racism is a moral catastrophe, most
graphically seen in the prison indus-
trial complex and targeted police sur-
veillance in black and brown ghettos
rendered invisible in public discourse.
If anti-Semitism is a variety of racism,
it is a most peculiar variety, with many
unique characteristics. In my view as
a historian, it is so peculiar that it de-
serves to be placed in a quite different
category. I would call it an intellectu-
al disease, a disease of the mind, ex-
tremely infectious and massively de-
structive.
Sanjeev Bhaskar
Octavia E. Butler
Cornel West
Paul Johnson

5. 5
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Racism is ignorant. And it’s stupid.
And it’s old. And it’s played out. So
beat it already with that, you know
what I mean? ‘Let’s all get along’ - I’m
so tired of that damn sentence, but it’s
true.
Racism is an ism to which everyone
in the world today is exposed; for or
against, we must take sides. And the
history of the future will differ accord-
ing to the decision which we make.
People sometimes hold themselves
back because they want to use racism
as an excuse for them not being able
to achieve what they want to achieve.
Racism oppresses its victims, but also
binds the oppressors, who sear their
consciences with more and more lies
until they become prisoners of those
lies. They cannot face the truth of hu-
man equality because it reveals the
horror of the injustices they commit.
Queen Latifah
Ruth Benedict
Herman Cain
Alveda King

6. 6
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Violence and racism are bad. When-
ever they occur they are to be con-
demned and we should not turn a
blind eye to them.
We must confront our own racism.
Discriminatory housing and employ-
ment policies are nothing more than
institutionalised racism.
We are never racist against some-
body who is very far away. I don’t
know any racism against the Eskimos.
To have a racist feeling, there must
be an other who is slightly different
from us - but is living close to us.
I was the only white kid in my neigh-
borhood for most of my youth even in
high school, so reverse racism was just
as apparent as racism.
Cate Blanchett
Tariq Ramadan
Umberto Eco
Shia LaBeouf

7. 7
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
The problem is that white people see
racism as conscious hate, when racism
is bigger than that. Racism is an insid-
ious cultural disease. Yes, racism looks
like hate, but hate is just one manifes-
tation. Privilege is another. Access is
another. Ignorance is another. Apathy
is another. And so on.
We have made enormous progress in
teaching everyone that racism is bad.
Where we seem to have dropped the
ball… is in teaching people what rac-
ism actually IS.
People know about the Klan and the
overt racism, but the killing of one’s
soul little by little, day after day, is a
lot worse than someone coming in
your house and lynching you.
Most middle-class whites have no
idea what it feels like to be subjected
to police who are routinely suspicious,
rude, belligerent, and brutal.
Scott Woods
Jon Stewart
Samuel L. Jackson
Benjamin Spock

8. 8
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
The new racism: Racism without ‘rac-
ists.’ Today, racial segregation and divi-
sion often result from habits, policies,
and institutions that are not explicitly
designed to discriminate. Contrary to
popular belief, discrimination or seg-
regation do not require animus. They
thrive even in the absence of preju-
dice or ill will.
Things like racism are institutional-
ized. You might not know any bigots.
You feel like ‘Well, I don’t hate Black
people so I’m not a racist,’ but you
benefit from racism.The opportuni-
ties that you have, you’re privileged in
ways that you might not even realize
because you haven’t been deprived of
certain things.
The police can go to downtown Har-
lem and pick up a kid with a joint in
the streets. But they can’t go into the
elegant apartments and get a stock-
broker who’s sniffing cocaine.
If you are neutral in situations of injus-
tice, you have chosen the side of the
oppressor. If an elephant has its foot
on the tail of a mouse, and you say
that you are neutral, the mouse will
not appreciate your neutrality.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
Dave Chappelle
Noam Chomsky
Desmond Tutu

9. 9
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
Race is the great taboo in our society.
We are afraid to talk about it. White
folks fear their unspoken views will
be deemed racist. People of colour
are filled with sorrow and rage at un-
righted wrongs. Drowning in silence,
we are brothers and sisters drowning
each other.
Many interviewers when they come
to talk to me, think they’re being pro-
gressive by not mentioning in their
stories any longer that I’m black. I tell
them, ‘Don’t stop now. If I shot some-
body you’d mention it.’
Until the philosophy which holds one
race superior and another inferior is
finally and permanently discredited
and abandoned everything is war.
If you as parents cut corners, your chil-
dren will too. If you lie, they will too.
And if parents snicker at racial and
gender jokes, another generation will
pass on the poison adults still have
not had the courage to snuff out.
Eva Paterson
Colin Powell
Bob Marley
Marian Wright Edelman

10. 10
RADAR Project: Regulating Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Racism Racism quotations
Learnmera Oywww.thelanguagemenu.com
In the end, anti-black, anti-female, and
all forms of discrimination are equiva-
lent to the same thing - anti-human-
ism.
Violence as a way of achieving racial
justice is both impractical and immor-
al. It is impractical because it is a de-
scending spiral ending in destruction
for all. It is immoral because it seeks
to humiliate the opponent rather than
win his understanding; it seeks to an-
nihilate rather than to convert. Vio-
lence is immoral because it thrives on
hatred rather than love.
When we lose the right to be differ-
ent, we lose the privilege to be free.
Sex and race because they are easy
and visible differences have been the
primary ways of organizing human be-
ings into superior and inferior groups
and into the cheap labour in which
this system still depends. We are talk-
ing about a society in which there will
be no roles other than those chosen
or those earned. We are really talking
about humanism.
Shirley Chisholm
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Charles Evan Hughes
Gloria Steinem