Poems, Meditations, and Worship Material: January 2006 Archives

Below are some quotes that help reveal the less visible aspects of racism.

Today, racism is far more camouflaged than it was [before the civil rights movement.] It is buried in institutional practices. It is hidden in coded language and subtle messages some people get when they shop, or look for a place to live or for a taxi, or have dealings with the police.

Project Hip-Hop, 1997

Racism is so universal is this country, so widespread and deep seated, that it is invisible because it is so normal.

Shirley Chisholm, 1970

If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is most nice, nonhating people who perpetuate racial inequality.

Ellis Cose, 1997

Black people know that sometimes their greatest enemy is. . . white people of power who would never utter a racist sentence in public, yet who quitely and privately do everything they can to keep black people as the slave class in this society.

Carl Rowan, 1991

We have long since grown accustomed to thinking of Blacks as being "racially disadvantaged." Rarely, however, do we refer to Whites as "racially advantaged," even though that is an equally apt characterization of the existing inequality.

Harlon Dalton, 1995

As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see the corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.

Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism does affect them because they are not people of color: the do not see "whiteness" as racial identity.

In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.

Peggy McIntosh, 1988

Whiteness in a racist, corporate controlled society is like having the image of an American Express Card. . . . stamped on one's face: immediately you are "universally accepted."

Manning Marable, 1997

Leadership is crucial, but as Paul Robinson reminded us,  leaders derive their power from a much deeper source.

The faces and the tactics of the leaders
may change every four years, or two, or one,
but the people go on forever.
The people - beaten down today,
yet rising tomorrow;
losing the road one minute
but finding it the next;
their eyes always fixed on a star
of true brotherhood *, equality, and dignity
- the people are the real guardians
of our hopes and dreams.

Paul Robinson, 1952

* for a reading I would substitute "true solidarity" for "true brotherhood."

Image was created by the subject and shared with the MoveOn library of photos for the budget fight back.