Subtle Racism Quotes

You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' – that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights, and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.

Racism in Brazil is well hidden, subtle, and unspoken, underestimated by the media. It is nevertheless extremely violent.

The people are maybe still as aware of the differences but they are more accepting of it that what we saw in the 70s and 80s, but the undercurrent is still there. There are maybe no racial slurs anymore, no firecrackers in mailboxes, the distinction is much more subtle.

One of the most subtle but aggressive ways racism exists is through our education system.

I think that racism has gotten more subtle, and it's not even racism anymore: it's placism. Like where you live or whether you went to community college or Harvard, and it exists within the race.

We always talk about how, obviously, there is still very in-your-face aggressive racism. But there's a lot of passive racism that, in the moment, you don't even realize is racist. You chalk it up as a strange interaction you had, and then you look at the context of it later on and realize the root of it was racism.

I found there's a fairly blatant racism in America that's already there, and I don't think I noticed it when I lived here as a kid. But when I went back to South Africa, and then it's sort of thrust in your face, and then came back here - I just see it everywhere.

Race was thick in the O.J. Simpson case from the very beginning, but it wasn't evident. And I think the O.J. Simpson case revealed that there is subtle race, and there is sophisticated race, and there's evident and observable race.

When a black man is stopped by a cop for no apparent reason, that is covert racism. When a black woman shops in a fancy store and is followed by security guards, that is covert racism. It is more subtle than 1960s racism, but it is still racism.

Those in blue suits who use thinly veiled race symbols -- when they say welfare and crime and three strikes and anti- affirmative action -- they are sending messages more profound their language.

My kids speak of both subtle slights and blatant racism. It's a narrative I never imagined for them.

Introducing someone as a "Negro poet with a University degree" or again, quite simply, the expression, "a great black poet." These ready-made phrases, which seem in a common-sense way to fill a need-or have a hidden subtlety, a permanent rub.

The racism in South Asia is the most specific racism in the world. It's like racism against a slightly different language group. It's like micro-racism.

The first time that I ever experienced a microaggression was probably in kindergarten. It's something that starts off from such a young age.