Racial Tension Quotes

“Most of us knew in our bones that things with the world weren’t right, long before it became a crisis.”
― Pernell Plath Meier, In Our Bones

“She’d worn anxiety like a thick robe for so long that it was hard for her to take it off.”
― Pernell Plath Meier, In Our Bones

“Embedded in their psyche was the story of what had happened to the world, and the boys felt glorious to be on the other side of the madness”
― Pernell Plath Meier, In Our Bones

“The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

“There's no such thing as a superhuman. But the only thing I got to tell you, if you take a dog and kick him around he's got to be alert, he's got to be more sharper than you. Well, we've been kicked around for two thousand years. We're not more smarter, we're more alert.”
― Mordecai Richler, Barney's Version

“People look at interracial couples through their own, distorting racial lens. It doesn't matter what form they take.”
― Mat Johnson, Loving Day

“Laurie piped up again. 'At State, everybody calls diversity dispersity. What happens is, everybody has their own clubs, their own signs, their own sections where they all sit in the dining hall--all the African Americans are over there? . . . and all the Asians sit over't these other tables? -- except for the Koreans? -- because they don't get along with the Japanese so they sit way over there? Everybody's dispersed into their own little groups -- and everybody's told to distrust everybody else? Everybody's told that everybody else is trying to screw them over--oops!' -- Laurie pulled a face and put her fingertips over her lips -- 'I'm sorry!' She rolled eyes and smiled. 'Anyway, the idea is, every other group is like prejudiced against your group, and no matter what they say, they're only out to take advantage of you, and you should have nothing to do with them -- unless your white, in which case all the others are not prejudiced against you, they're like totally right, because you really are a racist and everything, even if you don't know it? Everybody ends up dispersed into their own like turtle shells, suspicious of everybody else and being careful not to fraternize with them. Is it like that at Dupont?”
― Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons

“You don’t need 20/20 vision to see that 2020 is a giant caca burrito getting forced down our throats.”
― Stewart Stafford

“Since neither black animosity nor the Left’s falsehood of “racial tensions” is based on the actual behavior of the vast majority of white Americans, nothing white America can do will affect the perceptions of many black Americans or of the leftist libel.”
― Dennis Prager, From Rage to Responsibility: Black Conservative Jesse Lee Peterson and America Today

“2020 is the year that black people became the center of the universe, white people got evicted from the human race, and buying toilet paper became the new gold rush.”
― Stewart Stafford

“It was nineteen fifty seven, the Little Rock nine were escorted to school by Federal troops under the order of President Eisenhower to counteract the attempt of Arkansas Governor Faubus to prevent it. Southern racial tensions produced a supreme irony: Federal troops against the National Guard. This visible strife between state and nation was one of the evidences of the racial turmoil of the times”
― Sara Niles, Torn From The Inside Out

“It is not my province to show how brave it was for a great, strong nation to quell a riot caused by the dancing of a few 'bucks' – for civilized soldiers to slaughter indiscriminately, Indian women and children. Doubtless it was brave, for so public opinion tells us, and it cannot err.”
― S. Alice Callahan, Wynema: A Child of the Forest

“While United States sent troops to war, bitter racial tensions erupted into an all-out race riot in South Philadelphia. And unbeknownst to a petite, young, professional woman—she was the cause.”
― J.D. Crighton, Detective in the White City: The Real Story of Frank Geyer

“He’s got a bad case of something I call ethnic PMS. I think it sounds nicer than ‘bloodlust.”
― Andrei Codrescu, Wakefield

“The conflicts described [...]—school and prison violence, racial power struggles, discrimination lawsuits, language barriers, religious differences, a complex and unforgiving racial etiquette—are direct consequences of diversity. Whatever their leaders may tell them, ordinary Americans have not failed to notice this. A 2007 poll asked non-whites whether “racial tension” in the United States is either a “very important problem,” “somewhat important,” or not a problem at all. No less than 93 percent of Hispanics thought it was very or somewhat important (79 percent said “very important”), 92 percent of blacks thought it was very or somewhat important (65 percent said “very important”), and 73 percent of Asians thought it was very or somewhat important (37 percent said “very important”). When asked to agree or disagree with the statement, “There is a lot of discrimination against my community in the United States,” 92 percent of blacks, 85 percent of Hispanics, and 57 percent of Asians agreed.
Many Americans do not expect things to get much better. A 2004 Gallup poll asked, “Do you think that relations between blacks and whites will always be a problem for the United States, or that a solution will eventually be worked out?” Fifty-seven percent of blacks, 44 percent of whites and 42 percent of Hispanics said black-white relations would always be a problem. In 2010, only 36 percent of voters thought relations were improving between blacks and whites; among blacks only 13 percent saw improvement.
Nor, as we have seen, are relations bad only between whites and non-whites. A 2007 survey found that 61 percent of Hispanics, 54 percent of Asians, and 47 percent of blacks would rather do business with whites than with members of the other two groups.
According to a 2010 Rasmussen poll, 50 percent of voters thought relations were getting worse between whites and Hispanics; only 21 percent thought they were getting better. The same poll found that 34 percent of voters thought black-Hispanic relations were deteriorating while only 16 percent thought they were improving.”
― Jared Taylor, White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century

“For [Beth] Davis, Fitzgerald's [Louisiana] story carried another, broader message for Americans. 'If veterans could come together so soon after the War and forgive and forget, then surely we can overcome our differences,' she said. 'Old wounds were healed here, old barriers overcome. Seems like we should be able to do the same.”
― Tony Horwitz

“Dad didn't hate weddings," Mae said.
Her mom's brow creased. "Yes, he did," she said with a chuckle. "He was always going on about how he could go the rest of his life without hearing the wedding march ever again."
"No, he didn't," Mae said more firmly. She set her fork down. "He hated going to your family's weddings. Because it meant being around a bunch of white people who were just subtle enough to keep their racism discreet."
That did it. Susan froze. John took a long drink from his wineglass. Connor's gaze steadied on Mae, a haze of uncertainty in his eyes. Madison jerked her head back. Sierra watched her, looking vaguely curious. Her mom stared, mouth open.
"It was inevitable," Mae continued. "Whenever we had to be around the Parkers. Someone would always say something borderline. Dad and I would exchange a look, like, Here we go. Every wedding, every Christmas, every Thanksgiving, every Easter, we would sit across from each other at a table full of white people and share our silent little looks."
Her face was burning. Every pair of eyes at the table was laser-focused on her. Even Jayla, sitting one table over with the wedding party, was staring. Mae's mom opened her mouth, which just reminded Mae she had more to say.
"I wish you'd told me about grandma being racist to Althea."
It was mortifying, spilling her guts in front of her in-laws, but it was freeing, too. Like she was invincible. Like even though she was about to wreck her entire life, at least no one could stop her. You couldn't stop a hurricane.
"You said you didn't want me to feel different around her, but, Mom, I already did. And I wish you'd told me I had a sister. Do you know how much less alone I would have felt, knowing Sierra was my sister? Being around family that looked like me? Instead of a grandpa who said the n-word in front of me when I was eight? Or my husband's mom asking me how dark my skin gets in the sun?" Susan paled. "Or a cousin who--- you know what, Madison," Mae said, catching her eye across the table, "it is racist to say you refuse to shop at Black-owned businesses, and I shouldn't have defended you when Sierra called you on it." Madison's cheeks reddened, and she looked like she was going to object, but Mae wasn't done. "Is it any wonder that I would drive to Hobson and sacrifice so much to stay there, burning through all my PTO, giving up my entire honeymoon, because I finally had a family that didn't make me feel out of place?”
― Shauna Robinson, The Townsend Family Recipe for Disaster

“The interests of the minority must be safeguarded. That doesn't work in Africa. The African knows and understands one principle: winner takes all-and let the minority go to the wall. That's what will happen to the white settlers in Kenya if the British capitulate to the Mau Mau killers.”
― Wilbur Smith