Soledad O'Brien Quotes

I was one of the only people of color at my grade school and also my high school. It's weird recollecting on my childhood, I think, because my brothers are all white. We all share the same father but different mothers. I guess I kind of associated white, but I was occasionally reminded in a really negative way that I wasn't.

Most people don't think about race as much as I do. They don't have to.

Growing up, at that time, I didn't want to be black because I was bullied, and I'd tell my mum that I wanted to be white like everyone else at school.

There is a terrific apprehension among some people that blacks will take over the sport... It will create problems because their behavior, speech and dress is just a completely different culture.

In my own life I'm frequently in predominantly white atmospheres.

Being of color in America by no means amounts to a constant barrage of negativity. However, unlike being white, being of color means one's race is a constant issue.

I was made fun of in the Midwest - I was the only Asian in my graduating class of 200. Fortunately, I found my niche, and it was fine. But I wanted to be so white, you wouldn't believe it. I was like, 'I want to be white; I don't want to be this anymore.' But now I embrace it.

I never though much about race.

But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met.

Every single thing in my life is built around race.

We also thought of ourselves in racial and largely ethnic terms.

I'm the whitest guy you will ever meet. The first time I saw an African-American, my dad had to tell me to stop staring.

I was literally the black sheep of the family, and there were definitely moments of discomfort while my grandmother was working through her racism.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

Color categories are on steroids in Latin America. I find that fascinating. It's very difficult for Americans, particularly African-Americans to understand or sympathize with.

My grandmother though, began to prepare in her own neurotic - and I think psychotic - way to face racism. So she taught us to be racist, which is something I had to undo later when I got to Michigan, you know.

No one tells every white person in this country how to be. No one tells every Hispanic, or Asian or Jewish person in this country how to be. There is no single definition of whiteness or single definition of blackness.

Race is everything.

The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination

Our clear goal must be the advancement of the white race and separation of the white and black races.

This problem, which exists because of the presence of … Negroes in this country, can be permanently solved only by the physical separation of the races or by resigning ourselves to total mongrelization resulting in the destruction of both the white and black races

I write about race in America in hopes of undermining the notion of race in America.

The collective memory of race relations in the United States overlooks and omits the reality of mixed race. There existed a squeamishness, a disgust, a denouncement of “race mixing” that sparked riots, instituted legal prohibitions, and constructed categories, each of which insist upon the genealogical separation of black, white, and red.

I'm used to being the only black guy. I've seriously walked onstage, looked out in the audience, 15,000 people - and I'm the only one in the place. It's no big deal. My whole career's been like that.

I had no expectations of white people at all.