Racism in America Quotes

“It is easier simply to deny the bias, to say that what is, is not. Small wonder that's the default position of conservatism on matters of race: Absent burning crosses and pointy white hoods, nothing is ever racism to them. And the more fervently one denies self-evident truth, the more emotionally invested one becomes in doing so.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“The assumption that black people are less educable, loan-worthy or deserving of their constitutional rights is baked into our systems of education, banking and policing. If you're a teacher, a banker, a cop – even a black one – you swiftly learn that there are ways this institution treats African Americans and that if you want to thrive, you will conform.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“The "get tough on crime" wave that swept over this country in the '80s and '90s was born of the unfortunate American penchant for applying simplistic answers to complicated questions. But bumper sticker solutions have a way of bringing unintended consequences.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“Asking a conservative pundit for advice on race is like asking an ayatollah for advice on preparing the Christmas ham.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“when challenged to say why the nation should do something special for "the Negro," he pointedly observed that the nation had done something special against "the Negro" for centuries.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“we are a people estranged from critical thinking, divorced from logic, alienated from even objective truth. We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voices that do not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe. I submit that any people thus handicapped sow the seeds of their own decline; they respond to the world as they wish it were rather to the world as it is.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century

“Frank Turner, a news anchor with WXYZ-TV in Southfield, Michigan, recently wrote to say that blacks and whites discussing racism are "like a bear and a rabbit discussing a lion. Each views the lion from such a difference of perspective that it is difficult, if not impossible, for the bear to see the rabbit's point of view. "The rabbit can certainly see the lion for the threat he is … the family members he has eaten and ravaged, the pain, fear and anger he has caused … The bear, however, having never been a victim of the lion, can't understand why the rabbit doesn't just pull himself up by his paw straps and get over it.”
― Leonard Pitts Jr., Racism in America: Cultural Codes and Color Lines in the 21st Century