White Privilege Quotes

“Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah

“White privilege is an absence of the consequences of racism. An absence of structural discrimination, an absence of your race being viewed as a problem first and foremost.”
― Reni Eddo-Lodge, Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race

“To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.”

This invisibility is political.”
― Michael S. Kimmel, Privilege: A Reader

“You have to get over the fear of facing the worst in yourself. You should instead fear unexamined racism. Fear the thought that right now, you could be contributing to the oppression of others and you don't know it. But do not fear those who bring that oppression to light. Do not fear the opportunity to do better.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“Our police force was not created to serve black Americans; it was created to police black Americans and serve white Americans.”
― Ijeoma Oluo, So You Want to Talk About Race

“The world does not need white people to civilize others. The real White People's Burden is to civilize ourselves.”
― Robert Jensen, The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism, and White Privilege

“This statement of the jurors’ sense of justice may be the most succinct and forthright declaration of white privilege and racial paternalism I have ever heard.”
― George Critchlow, The Lifer and the Lawyer: A Story of Punishment, Penitence, and Privilege

“When you have only ever experienced privilege, equality feels like oppression.”
― Adam Rutherford, How to Argue With a Racist: History, Science, Race and Reality

“What if, ladies and gentlemen, today I told you that anyone here who was born on a Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday was free to leave right now? Also, they'd be given the most central parking spots in the city, and the biggest houses. They would get job interviews before others who were born later in the week, and they'd be taken first at the doctor's office, no matter how many patients were waiting in line. If you were born from Thursday to Sunday, you might try to catch up – but because you were straggling behind, the press would always point to how inefficient you are. And if you complained, you'd be dismissed for playing the birth-day card.” I shrug. “Seems silly, right? But what if on top of these arbitrary systems that inhibited your chances for success, everyone kept telling you that things were actually pretty equal?”
― Jodi Picoult, Small Great Things

“Take a little thought experiment. Imagine all the rampage school shooters in Littleton, Colorado; Pearl, Mississippi; Paducah, Kentucky; Springfield, Oregon; and Jonesboro, Arkansas; now imagine they were black girls from poor families who lived instead in Chicago, New Haven, Newark, Philadelphia, or Providence. Can you picture the national debate, the headlines, the hand-wringing? There is no doubt we’d be having a national debate about inner-city poor black girls. The entire focus would be on race, class, and gender. The media would doubtless invent a new term for their behavior, as with wilding two decades ago. We’d hear about the culture of poverty, about how living in the city breeds crime and violence. We’d hear some pundits proclaim some putative natural tendency among blacks toward violence. Someone would likely even blame feminism for causing girls to become violent in a vain imitation of boys.

Yet the obvious fact that virtually all the rampage school shooters were middle-class white boys barely broke a ripple in the torrent of public discussion. This uniformity cut across all other differences among the shooters: some came from intact families, others from single-parent homes; some boys had acted violently in the past, and others were quiet and unassuming; some boys also expressed rage at their parents (two killed their parents the same morning), and others seemed to live in happy families.”
― Michael S. Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era

“You're a Black educated fool, son. These white folk have newspapers, magazines, radios, spokesmen to get their ideas across. If they want to tell the world a lie, they can tell it so well that it becomes the truth; and if I tell them you're lying, they'll tell the world even if you prove you're telling the truth. Because it's the kind of lie they want to hear.”
― Ralph Ellison

“Paul jumped, unable to hide his surprise. Then he grinned and said, "Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. For a Chinese woman, your English is extraordinary. There is not a trace of an accent to be found."
"I have an American accent," she replied dully.
Paul waved her off. "You know what I mean."
Do I? she wanted to say. Would I be less if I sounded like my mother, my father, and all those in this city who were forced to learn more than one language, unlike you?”
― Chloe Gong, These Violent Delights

“Heterosexual choice is allowed to be the background of a writer’s life; its wallpaper. So is maleness. And whiteness. Step out of that and you will be called a feminist writer, a lesbian writer, a gay writer, a woman writer. A black writer. You will never be called a heterosexual writer or a male writer or a white writer. Those signifiers are absorbed into the single word ‘writer’.”
― Jeanette Winterson, Love

“Till a “white man” climbs the Everest, do the Himalayas really exist!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“How to Cure Racism
(Indigenous Sonnet 3218)

If you want to tackle racism
after the damage has been done,
focus on race relations,
but if you want to cure
the system that produces racism,
focus on decolonial studies for children,
make decolonial studies mandatory part
of the curriculum from middle school.

All of us who are mentally decolonized,
white and colored alike, became so
out of our own personal inquisitiveness,
not as a result of institutional schooling,
because the institutions themselves haven't
outgrown their endemic eurocentric whitewash
yet, regardless of how proficient they are in
maths and biology and physics and engineering.

It's easier to dissect the brain
than it is to behave human -
studying for grades you become good employees,
reading for pleasure you change the world.

Proficiency in maths, biology, physics,
and engineering count for nothing,
if the hands wielding them
haven't grown into human yet.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“White is not a color, white is a mentality, which affects everybody, particularly in a world which is whitewashed from head to toe, from future to the past, from pulpit to the parliament, from belief to disbelief.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“I don't consider any white man's opinion worthy of respect until they've proven that they're on the side of humanity, not their thieving ancestors’ - and this applies not just to the white man of faith, but also the white man of reason.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Naskar DSM of Earth Disorders (Sonnet 3134)

Racism is a developmental disorder,
Colonialism is an eating disorder,
Nationalism is paranoid schizophrenia.

Misogyny is a vertebral dysfunction,
Transphobia is oxygen deficiency,
White privilege is narcissistic personality disorder.

Islamophobia is a cardiac disorder,
Zionism is a brain disorder.
I prescribe, don't isolate them,
make it unbearably friendly for them
to even go grocery shopping -
smile, offer them a flower,
and a get well card.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“The Naskar Fraud (Sonnet 3185)

If a white person promotes his work, it's industrious.
If a colored person promotes his work, it's spam.
If a white person is hyper-productive, he's a genius.
If a colored person is hyper-productive, he's a fraud.

White person produces versatile work, he's a polymath.
Colored person produces versatile work, it's a scam.
White people work in foreign lands, they're expats.
Colored people work in foreign lands, they're immigrants.

White people destroy countries after countries,
still they can expect to be treated fairly.
Colored people seek for an ounce of acceptance,
suddenly it's a western existential catastrophe.

And yet, I forgive you my child! Dismiss me today,
your own blood will celebrate me tomorrow.
P.S. my vastness is no reason for you to feel threatened,
I'm not gonna begrudge you your little white giants.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“If a white person promotes his work, it's industrious. If a colored person promotes his work, it's spam.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“If a white person is hyper-productive, he's a genius. If a colored person is hyper-productive, he's a fraud.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“Till White Man Verifies (Sonnet 3188)

If a "white man" cannot verify it,
is it really rational!
If a "white man" cannot verify it,
is it really poetry!

If a "white man" cannot verify it,
is it really philosophy!
If a "white man" cannot verify it,
is it really theology!

If a "white man" has no need for religion,
is there really any need for religion!
Once a "white man" declares his "true religion",
isn't it proof that all others are false!

Till a "white man" climbs the Everest,
do the Himalayas really exist!
If a "white man" cannot recognize genocide
outside one little white-friendly holocaust
narrative, did the genocides really happen!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“The first duty of every white person is to make amends, not out of guilt, but out of human responsibility - in fact, the will of reparation is the first sign that a white person is becoming human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Aşkoholic: Portrait of A Human

“When it was “Slava Ukraini”,
it was not hard to say.

When it was “Free Poland”,
it was not hard to say.

When it was “Vive la France”,
it was not hard to say.

But when it’s “Free Palestine”,
whitewashed apes get tonguetied!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you want to tackle racism after the damage has been done, focus on race relations, but if you want to cure the system that produces racism, focus on decolonial studies for children.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Better White Guilt than White Privilege
(Sonnet 3222-3223)

If you are white, be extremely cautious,
self-conscious, and absolutely apologetic,
while commenting on people's religion and
culture, and it does not matter whatsoever
whether you're a fundamentalist or rationalist;

because that's exactly how your ancestors
destroyed populations after populations,
not only in the name of god,
but also in the name of rationality.

So whenever you feel the elitist urge
to dismiss other people's culture,
look at your skin first,
if it turns red in the sun,
it's nature's way of telling you to shut up,
you're in no ethical position
to pass judgement on morality and reason.

Do not even open your mouth until
you're properly scrubbed and decolonized -
if you wanna call it white guilt, call it white guilt,
better white guilt than white privilege.

In fact, if you feel guilty for the actions
of your animal ancestors, it's proof that
your bloodline has finally become human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you feel guilty for the actions of your animal ancestors, it's proof that your bloodline has finally become human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“If you are white, be extremely cautious, self-conscious, and absolutely apologetic, while commenting on people's religion and culture, and it does not matter whatsoever whether you're a fundamentalist or rationalist; because that's exactly how your ancestors destroyed populations after populations, not only in the name of god, but also in the name of rationality.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Whenever you feel the elitist urge to dismiss other people's culture, look at your skin first, if it turns red in the sun, it's nature's way of telling you to shut up, you're in no ethical position to pass judgement on morality and reason.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer

“Do not even open your mouth until you're properly scrubbed and decolonized - if you wanna call it white guilt, call it white guilt, better white guilt than white privilege.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Jashn-e Insan: Stranger is God, Helping is the Prayer