White Man Quotes

“Before our white brothers arrived to make us civilized men, we didin't have any kind of prison. Because of this, we didn't have any delinquents. Without a prison, there can't be no delinquents. We had no locks nor keys therefore among us there were no thieves. When someone was so poor that he couldn't afford a horse, a tent or a blanket, he would, in that case, receive it all as a gift. We were too uncivilized to give great importance to private property. We didn't know any kind of money and consequently, the value of a human being was not determined by his wealth. We had no written laws laid down, no lawyers, no politicians, therefore we were not able to cheat and swindle one another. We were really in bad shape before the white man arrived and I don't know how to explain how we were able to manage without these fundamental things that (so they tell us) are so necessary for a civilized society.”
― John (Fire) Lame Deer

“I have the soul of a white man, the soul of a black man, the soul of an Asian man; the soul of every man.”
― Matshona Dhliwayo

“Exterior: the jungle. Interior: Dark night of the white man’s soul.”
― Andrew Durbin, Mature Themes

“He's turned inside out, and is with the Sudanese to find out how to become right again.”
― Dave Eggers, What Is the What

“It doesn't exactly fill me with pride."
"For what, being a white man?"
"For being a carbon based life-form.”
― Jonathan Maberry, The Dragon Factory

“Up to that time most of the Pimas and Maricopas wore long hair. One of the first steps towards their 'civilization' was to get them to cut their hair. Finding this a difficult problem, the agency offered a hat to anyone who cut his hair.
...
The [United States government-run] agency had a hard time getting those Pimas to give up their olas-ki [round houses] to build and live in adobe houses. Adobe houses were supposed to be more civilized than the old arrow-weed shelters. But the Pimas did not want to change. So the agency issued a wagon to any Pima family who would build and live in an adobe house. The only thing was, they forgot to issue plans, so a Pima who wanted a free wagon built an adobe house according to his old ideas of a house, with a small door and no windows. These were warm on the few cold nights, but there was no ventilation.
Some older people in my own family did what the agency told them to do. They built and lived in an adobe house. When they died they all died of tuberculosis.
[pages 49 and 50, Progress]”
― George Webb, A Pima Remembers

“Tracker Marks was of a different opinion. Though he seemed more white than a white man, he had no time for their ways. For him his dress, his deportment was no different than staying downwind in the shadows of trees when hunting, blending into the world of those he hunted, rather than standing out from it. Once he had excelled at the emu dance & the kangaroo dance; then his talent led him to the whitefella dance, only now no-one was left of his tribe to stand around the fire & laugh & praise his talent for observation & stealthy imitation.

The whites have no law, he told Capois Death, no dreaming. Their way of life made no sense whatsoever. Still, he did not hate them or despise them. They were stupid beyond belief, but they had a power, & somehow their stupidity & their power were, in Tracker Marks’s mind, inextricably connected. But how? he asked Capois Death. How can power & ignorance sleep together? Questions to which Capois Death had no answer.”
― Richard Flanagan

“You bought a watch for a penny and complain, it doesn't have light. do you think white men are stupid?”
― Gbenga Olisa

“Some of the Big Mountain area lies in Navajo land and another part is within the Hopi reservation. The boundaries were not made by either the Hopis or the Navajos, but, in 1891, by some white government types who, as they always do, took a map of Arizona, drew a big square on it with the ruler, and said: “Okay, what’s inside the square is Hopi, and what’s outside is Navajo.” Then they probably slapped each other on the back and went to the nearest bar to have a drink. As long as no white rancher or farmer had any use for country that was looked upon as a wasteland, this “boundary” stuff didn’t matter.”
― Mary Brave Bird, Ohitika Woman

“Now some entrepreneurs from Connecticut, and the East generally, want to turn our reservation into a garbage dump. The wasichu have already given us smallpox, measles, and whiskey, and now they want to bury us in their waste.”
― Mary Brave Bird, Ohitika Woman

“I am sick and tired of all the bullshit that has been dumped on us by the wasichu for more than five hundred years after we were “discovered” by a fellow who was merely eight thousand miles off course and who thought he had landed in India. I am tired of being dominated by an alien and hostile culture. I am tired of the pressure to adapt to the white men’s idea of beauty, which prods me to have an ivory skin, to be as thin as a rail but have big breasts, to spend money on all kinds of crap to have “glorious silky hair,” to be manicured by a “nail artist,” and to shave the hair nature made grow under my armpits. I am sick and tired of being asked to conform to standards that are not our own. I am sick and tired of being forced to live within a society dominated by money, or in the case of us native peoples, by the total lack of it. I am sick and tired of seeing our men driven by despair, boredom, and lack of anything meaningful to do to find oblivion in alcohol, to commit suicide, or to end up in prison. I am sick and tired of seeing Indian people being driven by prevailing conditions into violence against each other. I am sick and tired of seeing the steady erosion of our land base, because without our land we will cease to be. I am goddam sick and tired of being put down on account of my sex and my race. I am sick and tired of the newspapers read by Indians running ads that say: “Strong, willing girl sought as live-in baby sitter and all-around maid. Must be sober and accommodating. Call collect.” What’s the matter? Could they be running out of our black sisters to do the shitwork for them? And I am also sick and tired of ads reading: “Loving couple eager to adopt cute, healthy baby boy.”
― Mary Brave Bird, Ohitika Woman