Ibram X. Kendi Quotes

Certainly we can end racism with love. We can demand that the federal government change its emphasis on racial distinction.

The only people who live in a post-black world are four people who live in a little white house on Pennsylvania Avenue. The idea that America is post-racial or post-black because a man I admire, Barack Obama, is president of the United States, is a joke. And I hope no one will even wonder about this crazy fiction again.

People have got to get together and work together. I'm tired of the kind of oppression that white people have inflicted on us and are still trying to inflict.

It really bothers me when people say we live in a postracial America.

The unified message in this fight against systemic racism and racial inequality is something that our entire Association is united to fight against.

It's not enough to just not be racist. You've got to be anti-racist. You've got to hold everybody accountable.

When you say black lives matter, that's inherently racist.

It does no service to the cause of racial equality for white people to content themselves with judging themselves to be nonracist. Few people outside the clan or skinhead movements own up to all-out racism these days. White people must take the extra step. They must become anti-racist.

However, while we should certainly celebrate the demise of overt official racism, we must also critically examine where we are at this historical moment, recognize the many challenges ahead and reaffirm our commitment to making Brown v. Board a reality.

We were taught in school, and I was taught at home and in church, that blacks and whites were equal and we should not discriminate based on skin color, even if my school was almost entirely white.

What had begun as a movement to free all black people from racist oppression became a movement with its primary goal the establishment of black male patriarchy.

A race-transcendent politics is most likely to succeed when the white community takes responsibility for overcoming its racism, not when the black community decides to forget it.

The only way you get to the goal of color blindness is to be color conscious along the way.

The world has made being black a crime .... I hope to make it a virtue.

Until racial justice and freedom is a reality in this land, our union will remain profoundly imperfect.... The Negro is going to get justice or this society will be ripped apart.

Now in speaking like this, it doesn't mean that we're anti-white, but it does mean we're anti-exploitation, we're anti-degradation, we're anti-oppression. And if the white man doesn't want us to be anti-him, let him stop oppressing and exploiting and degrading us.

The race question in America has often been about race, but it has equally often been about power.

We cannot just be nonracist. We really do need to be antiracist.

I think we can continue to do as much protesting as we want. Systemic racism needs to be changed from within.

We cannot afford to be color-blind, we have to be color-brave.

I'm not the authority on the subject. I'm a middle-aged white guy speaking about racism. I'm just finding it a really difficult subject to broach.

I wanted people to begin dialogue about racism, about colorism. I wanted people to really become honest about our beliefs, about racism and how it exists in America today.

What I remember about race relations in the 1990s is that you showed your awareness by saying you didn't see race, that you were colour-blind.

At the end of the day, if you're not against racism, you're racist.

I love when white people use their privilege to combat prejudice.