Quotes about white (2946 quotes, page 30)

“Your experience has so much to do with how you view difference and how you approach being in the world. For example, in the grocery store, if someone comes down the aisle, I always preemptively move to the side—I’ve had many experiences where I get a glare or a huffy scolding or even a racial slur if the person feels I’m in the way. My parents did the same; years of experience as part of a racial minority taught them that to be noticed often means being harassed, so they try to avoid attention of any kind. On the other hand my husband, who is white, continues whatever he’s doing. His reasoning is ‘If I’m in the way, they’ll just ask me to move,’ and he’s right. The world treats him differently, so he sees it very differently.”

Celeste Ng (1980) American novelist

On how she approaches the world differently than her Caucasian husband in “’Memory at its Core’: An Interview with Celeste Ng” https://www.loc.gov/poetry/interviews/celeste-ng.html (Library of Congress; Summer 2018)

Personality , Way , Parent , World

“What use the green river, the gold place, if time and
death pinned human in the pocket of my land not rest
from taking underground the green all-willowed and
white rose and bean flower and morning-mist picnic of
song in pepper-pot breast of thrush?”

Janet Frame (1924–2004) New Zealand author

Owls Do Cry, pt, 1, chap. 4, 1961

Flowers , Death , Time

“Either there is or there is not a mechanism for enforcing human rights. If there is not, it would seem that calling them 'rights' simply means that we think it would (morally) be a good idea if they were enforced, although, of course, they are not. A 'human right' is an inherently vacuous conception, and to speak of 'human rights' is a kind of puffery or white magic.”

Raymond Geuss (1946) British philosopher

Pg 144
History and Illusion in Politics (2001)

Idea , Thinking

“In society, we do horrible things to one another because we don't see the person it affects. We don't see their face. We don't see them as people. Which was the whole reason the hood was built in the first place, to keep the victims of apartheid out of sight and out of mind. Because if white people ever saw black people as human, they would see that slavery is unconscionable. We live in a world where we don't see the ramifications of what we do to others, because we don't live with them. It would be a whole lot harder for an investment banker to rip off people with subprime mortgages if he actually had to live with the people he was ripping off. If we could see one another's pain and empathize with one another, it would never be worth it to us to commit the crimes in the first place.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 222
Born a Crime

World , Personality , Pain , People

“Growing up the way I did, I learned how easy it is for white people to get comfortable with a system that awards them all the perks. I knew my cousins were getting beaten for things that I'd done, but I wasn't interested in changing my grandmother's perspective, because that would mean I'd get beaten, too. Why would I do that? So that I'd feel better? Being beaten didn't make me feel better. I had a choice. I could champion racial justice in our home, or I could enjoy granny's cookies. I went with the cookies.”

Trevor Noah book Born a Crime

page 52/53
Born a Crime

Home , Justice , People , Learning

“I considered myself white, having grown up essentially American but with Filipino parents. I don’t speak with an accent and I barely speak Tagalog. So, for most of my life, I looked at the world as a ‘white’ person.”

Jason Tanamor (1975) Filipino-American Author and Writer

Filipino Daily Inquirer Interview (2020)

World , Personality , Life , Parent

“If you are friends with someone, and you're like 'Hey, what ethnicity are you,' that's cool. But you wouldn't walk up to a white person and say, 'What kind of white are you?'”

Arden Cho (1985) Korean-American actress and singer

As quoted in "Arden Cho Opens Up About Racism in New Video" in Teen Vogue (9 August 2017) https://www.teenvogue.com/story/arden-cho-racism-video

Personality

“It is time to remember that old wisdom our soldiers will never forget: that whether we are black or brown or white, we all bleed the same red blood of patriots, we all enjoy the same glorious freedoms, and we all salute the same great American Flag.”

Donald J. Trump (1946) 45th President of the United States of America

Freedom , Time , Forgetting , Wisdom

“The white sheet of repentance is a very poor substitute for a mainsail.”

David Lloyd George (1863–1945) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

On the reunion of the Liberal Party; speech to the Oxford University New Reform Club (22 June 1923), quoted in John Campbell, Lloyd George: The Goat in the Wilderness, 1922–1931 (1977), p. 69
Leader of the National Liberal Party

“God is a white Light, cosmic, gorgeous one…”

Simone Bittencourt de Oliveira (1949) Brazilian singer

Cara a Cara Program, 1993, Rede Bandeirantes

God , Light

“We must never substitute a doctrine of Black supremacy for white supremacy. For the doctrine of Black supremacy is as dangerous as white supremacy. God is not interested merely in the freedom of black men and brown men and yellow men but God is interested in the freedom of the whole human race, the creation of a society where all men will live together as brothers”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

"Social Justice and the Emerging New Age" address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University (18 December 1963)
1960s

God , Freedom , Men

“Governments of developing countries sometimes proposed projects that did not directly benefit the population, but did benefit the government; the so-called 'white elephants.'”

Mark Eyskens (1933) Belgian politician

For example, they wanted to build highways and build large buildings, while we thought it was better to focus on good education.
Development cooperation not only helps others, but also ourselves http://www.wereldmissiehulp.be/eyskens/

Country

“American military power has been the enemy of the White race and the tool of Jewry and international finance ever since.”

David Lane (white nationalist) (1938–2007) American white supremacist, convicted felon

Revolution by Number

“In reading authors, when you find
Bright passages that strike your mind,
And which perhaps you may have reason
To think on at another season,
Be not contented with the sight,
But take them down in black and white;
Such a respect is wisely shown
That makes another's sense one's own.”

John Byrom (1692–1763) Poet, inventor of a shorthand system

"A Hint to a young Person, for his better Improvement by Reading or Conversation"
Miscellaneous Poems (1773)

Reading , Season , Thinking , Sense

“You can't rap, my friend
You're white and you're from Fulham
Please put down the mic
there's no way you can fool them
Don't be stupid, you won't get that far
Turn your back on hip-hop, bruv, and go and play guitar”

Example (musician) (1982) English rapper and singer

"You Can't Rap" (song)
("You Can't rap" - Official video on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cvCd1Xq0Au4
(+ Lyrics version of "You Can't Rap" on YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bK_3L-9dv_c
Studio albums, What We Made (2007)

Stupidity , Fools , Way

“All my dreams are in black and white. I believe this is the main reason why I can't be a racist in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Dreams , Life

“My God can neither be imagined nor described. He is infinite. Tall or short, fat or thin, old or young, black or white. These are the human attributes that we try to apply to God into our limited minds.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God , Imagination

“This is a white man's country, with a white man's civilization and any dream on the part of the Negro race to share social and political equality will be shattered in the end.”

Theodore G. Bilbo (1877–1947) American politician

In a statement arguing that would have been practically impossible to prevent Hartfield's lynching
1919

Country , Dreams , Parting

“Growing up as a woman in Korea was tough, but was also a gift at the same time. If I were a Korean man, or a white male in the States, I would not have been able to make this film. You got to experience complex human emotions because you were going through a lot of things.”

Kim Bora (1981) South Korean director

As quoted in "Coming of Age in Korea: Kim Bora Discusses "House of Hummingbird"" in Mubi (27 April 2019) https://mubi.com/notebook/posts/coming-of-age-in-korea-kim-bora-discusses-house-of-hummingbird

Time

“We are all human beings—the same human beings. Don’t categorize that you are yellow, you are white, you are Black, and white is better than yellow or Black or any other skin color. That’s stupid things to compare. We are all different and beautiful.”

Youn Yuh-jung (1947) South Korean actress

Max, Gao, ‘Minari’ Actress Youn Yuh-Jung Knows the Awards “Mean Nothing to Me”, Observer, 2021-02-15, 2021-06-08 https://observer.com/2021/02/youn-yuh-jung-interview-minari/,

Beauty , Color , Stupidity

“Noone loves the second amendment and due process more than me. Maybe we just take everyone's guns away. Nobody is allowed to have a gun, not even whites.”

Alec Baldwin (1954) American actor, writer, producer, and comedian

4 March 2018 https://www.cnn.com/videos/cnnmoney/2018/03/04/snl-trump-alec-baldwin-gun-control-orig-gs.cnn/video/playlists/snl-politics/

Love

“Why can’t it be simple? If we were only to focus on gender, it would make things so much easier. But of course, it has been this yearning toward simplicity that has racialized feminism as white, that has been responsible for its false universals.”

Angela Davis (1944) American political activist, scholar, and author

Difficult Dialogues (2009)

Falseness , Universe

“The desert sands look white as snow;
The crescent moon hangs like a bow.
When would the steed in golden gear
Gallop all night through autumn clear?”

Li He (790–816) Chinese writer

"Twenty-three Horse Poems", 5 (《马诗二十三首（其五）》), in Song of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, trans. Xu Yuanchong (Penguin Books, 1994), p. 91
Original: (zh-CN) 大漠沙如雪，燕山月似钩。
何当金络脑，快走踏清秋。

Night , Autumn

“Come up, with white and crimson!
O, shake your bells and sing;
Let the porch bend, the pillars bow,
Before our Lord, the Spring!”

Alfred Noyes (1880–1958) English poet

The Lord of Misrule
The Lord of Misrule and Other Poems (1915)

Singing , Spring

“If America is the culmination of Western white civilisation, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilisation.”

Susan Sontag (1933–2004) American writer and filmmaker, professor, and activist

Source: Partisan Review (Winter 1967), p. 57

“It's our *white* responsibility to make sure people who speak out about racism are safe at all times. This means ending structural racism in our societies, authorities and media.”

Carola Rackete (1988) German merchant navy captain

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/CaroRackete/status/1276803845465636864 (27 June 2020)

People , Time

“There are people who seriously think sea rescue activists like me rescue Black lives because we hate white people. Some white people feel personally threatened by the fact that human rights apply to everyone equally. White priviledge needs to end if we want justice, ever.”

Carola Rackete (1988) German merchant navy captain

Source: Twitter https://twitter.com/CaroRackete/status/1276852825432166401 (27 June 2020)

Hate , Personality , People , Sea

“The people working at the White House at the time are friends of mine, and they're friends of mine to this day. I don’t want to trivialize how difficult their decisions were. They did not have good choices.”

Michael McFaul (1963) American academic and diplomat

"Michael McFaul - The Frontline Interview" in PBS https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/interview/michael-mcfaul/ (23 June 2017)

Housing , People , Decision , Time

“You were white, you were brown, you were red, you were dust. You were both and neither. When you took baths, you’d stare at your brown arms against your white legs in the water and wonder what they were doing together in the same body.”

Tommy Orange book There There

There There (2018)
Source: As quoted in [Charles, Ron, What does it mean to be Native American? A new novel offers a bracing answer., https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/what-does-it-mean-to-be-native-american-a-new-novel-offers-a-bracing-answer/2018/05/29/a508d0ba-6289-11e8-a768-ed043e33f1dc_story.html?utm_term=.be19d7820b31, 9 August 2018, The Washington Post, May 29, 2018]

Water

“The news was highly coloured, even if the print was black and white.”

Genevieve Cogman (1972) novelist and game designer

Source: The Lost Plot (2017), Chapter 9 (p. 118)

“Blacks who lack a proper killing rage are merely victims of the genocidal campaign that white America is waging against them.”

David Horowitz (1939) Neoconservative activist, writer

from the 1999 book Hating Whitey and Other Progressive Causes.
1990s

Rage

“f „I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my god-damned friends, White, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor nights!“”

Richhommie@_1

God , Night

“People love to classify things as black and white, good or bad, but I’ve seldom met any one who can be neatly defined and classified…”

Silvia Moreno-Garcia (1981) Canadian writer

Source: On the grayness of her characters in http://www.nightmare-magazine.com/nonfiction/author-spotlight-silvia-moreno-garcia/ “Author Spotlight: Silvia Moreno-Garcia”] in Nightmare Magazine (Nov 2015)

People , Love

“Being jewish is a tangible unbroken form of identity going back 3000 years, whiteness is a construct from 200 ybp.”

Barbara Lerner Spectre (1942) Israeli academic

Source: Twitter https://web.archive.org/web/20150712181104/https://twitter.com/barbara_spectre/status/554422393951633408 (2015)

“I do love romantic movies, but at my age it doesn’t happen very often. I’ve always admired love stories—the expression of love is like white light to me. Every color of the universe is in the love story.”

Nicolas Cage (1964) American actor

"Nicolas Cage Is Ready to Be Taken Seriously Again" in Vanity Fair https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2021/07/nicolas-cage-pig-interview (15 July 2021)

Light , Universe , Color , Age

“All ideas come from sensation or reflection. Let us then suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be furnished?”

Kengo Kuma (1954) Japanese architect (b.1954)

1954

Idea

“When I was bleeding to death in my Black Hawk helicopter after I was shot down, I didn't care if the American troops risking their lives to help save me were gay, straight, transgender, black, white or brown.”

Tammy Duckworth (1968) United States senator from Illinois

Tammy Duckworth in "White House to instruct Pentagon on how to implement president's transgender ban in the military" http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-transgender-ban-20170824-story.html by Brian Bennett and David S. Cloud, LA Times, (August 24, 2017)

Help , Death

“‘White’ history is moribund; but the ‘whites’’ history is not.”

Marc Ferro (1924–2021) French historian

Chap. 1 : ‘White history’, a vestige: Johannesburg
The Use and Abuse of History (1981)

History

“One of the most serious obstacles to genuine diversification is that on most campuses the faculty remains lily-white and male”

Elizabeth Martinez (1925) American community organizer, activist, author, and educator

De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (2017)

“Because we are so accustomed to talking about race in terms of black and white, we often fail to recognize and contest expressions of racism that target people of color who are not black.”

Angela Davis Are Prisons Obsolete?

Source: Are Prisons Obsolete? (2003), Chapter Two

People , Color

“I think: what is my responsibility to my roots-both white and brown, Spanish-speaking and English? I am a woman with a foot in both worlds; and I refuse the split. I feel the necessity for dialogue. Sometimes I feel it urgently”

Cherríe Moraga (1952) American writer

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Fourth Edition (2015)

World , Thinking , Feeling

“Time and time again, I have observed that the usual response among white women's groups when the "racism issue" comes up is to deny the difference. I have heard comments like, "Well, we're open to all women; why don't they (women of color) come? You can only do so much..."”

Cherríe Moraga (1952) American writer

But there is seldom any analysis of how the very nature and structure of the group itself may be founded on racist or classist assumptions. More important, so often the women seem to feel no loss, no lack, no absence when women of color are not involved; therefore, there is little desire to change the situation. This has hurt me deeply. I have come to believe that the only reason women of a privileged class will dare to look at how it is that they oppress, is when they've come to know the meaning of their own oppression. And understand that the oppression of others hurts them personally.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Fourth Edition (2015)

Time , Color , Women