Institutional Discrimination Quotes

Racialized oppression and dehumanization is woven into the very fabric of our nation — the effects of which can be seen in the lawful lynching of black and brown people by the police, and the mass incarceration of black and brown lives in the prison industrial complex,

The effort we make in trying to get white people to let us alone or invest in us is looking pretty futile…. I am a reluctant separatist

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

Blacks are about seven times more likely to live in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty than whites.

Communities have changed. Our society is changing. Sometimes I feel like our law enforcement, the public services, they don't have enough resources to keep up with the changes that we see in our society.

The history of black America was from slavery, oppression, civil rights, and you felt kind of isolated as an entity in our country.

What did you expect? I don’t know why you’re so surprised. When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for 300 years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do? He’s going to knock your block off.

I think Charlottesville was shocking for some, but it wasn't for me or for my family, I mean, because I grew up in 1980s Nashville.

As someone who escaped religious persecution in Lebanon and whose parents were kidnapped in Beirut, I fully support the protection of all individuals from institutional discrimination. That said, I am weary of the ethos of victimhood that has parasitized our culture.

I think 'The Wire' really is relatable. It reflects an ongoing issue across America, about inaccuracies in major cities between rich and the poor and some of the things that go on behind the red tape of council and government bodies.

Codifying discrimination in our laws should be something we read about in American history, not on the front pages of today's American newspapers and magazines.

This assumption of Negro leadership in the ghetto, then, must not be confined to matters of religion, education, and social uplift; it must deal with such fundamental forces in life as make these things possible.

We have one Black man as President; we have one million Black men in prison.

Black-on-black crime is a massive human rights issue that's going on in America.

The white man says there is freedom and justice for all. We have had "freedom and justice," and that is why we have been almost exterminated. We shall not forget this.

Ronald Reagan is the President who is more responsible than any for the fact that white racism is both tolerated and even fashionable again in America.

Blacks commit murder eight times more per capita than any other group in our society. If I had put all of my police officers on Park Avenue and none in Harlem, thousands and thousands more blacks would've been killed during the eight years that I was mayor.

We should not have drug laws or a court system that disproportionately punishes the black community.

This Government was made by our fathers on the white basis ... made by white men for the benefit of white men and their posterity forever.’

Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.

White supremacy is not confined to strange men in the Deep South who put on white cloaks, it is not confined to strange gatherings of the English Defence League.

Most of today's black convicts have come to understand that they are the most abused victims of an unrighteous order.

It’s time we faced facts. Southern people just don’t like Black people.

This is a country that was founded on racism. It was built on racism. It still continues to thrive through wealth disparity, and housing disparity is all built on the backs of racism.

… white racism is essentially responsible for the explosive mixture (of private discrimination and segregation) that has been accumulating in our cities since the end of World War II.