321 Best Movie Quotes About Racism (2023)

1. “Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third Elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over.”

2. “Prejudice is a burden that confuses the past, threatens the future, and renders the present inaccessible.” —Maya Angelou

3. Racism is not getting worse, it's getting filmed.

4. “Your father taught you all that warrior nonsense—but he also taught you how to think. Don’t fight this war with guns.” – Ramonda

5. “We will work to be an example of how we, as brothers and sisters on this earth, should treat each other. Now, more than ever, the illusions of division threaten our very existence. We all know the truth: more connects us than separates us. But in times of crisis the wise build bridges, while the foolish build barriers. We must find a way to look after one another, as if we were one single tribe.” – King T’Challa [Think the last sentence with Galatians 3:28]

6. “I have a little framed document in my bathroom, a letter from, I think Texas Bureau of Corrections, saying that “Paradise” was banned from the prison because it might incite a riot. And I thought, how powerful is that? I could tear up the whole place!”

7. “You gold-teeth-gold-cdxzzxZx xzhain-wearin’, fried-chicken-and-biscuit-eatin’, monkey, ape, baboon, big thigh, fast-runnin’, high-jumpin’, spear-chuckin’, 360-degree-basketball-dunkin’ titsun spade Moulan Yan. Take your fuckin’ pizza-pizza and go the fuck back to Africa. ” [speaking to Mookie] ― Pino

8. “If you got rid of every cop with vaguely racist leanings, then you'd have three cops left, and all o' them are gonna hate the fags, so what are ya gonna do, y'know?”

9. “To be honest, I just want to educate more people about the WNBA, women in sports… empowering women in general… Especially educating other women on how to empower women.”

10. At the heart of racism is the religious assertion that God made a creative mistake when He brought some people into being.

11. “Never let the fear of failing discourage you from trying.”

12. “Of all the girl-on-girl movies I have seen this year, Carol is about the third best.”

13. “The black is a better athlete to begin with because he’s been bred to be that way… This goes back all the way to the Civil War when during the slave trading, the owner – the slave owner would breed his big black to his big woman so that he could have a big black kid.”

14. “Because we can’t tell others about our accomplishments if we don’t know them ourselves.”

15. A riot is the language of the unheard.

16. It belongs to the very substance of nonviolence never to destroy or damage another person's feeling of self-worth, even an opponent's.

17. “As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal.' We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes.' When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.' When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”

18. “- Anderson: You know, if I were a Negro, I'd probably think the same way they do.

19. “Wakanda survived for so long by only fighting when absolutely necessary.” – Okoye [POCs in the US often stay quiet for all the racism and injustice, so when the last straw crushes, people go wild… Throughout the history, POC leaders who proclaim the justice cannot stay long, the system and the racists removed them, twist them, and changed them. E.g.: MLK Jr]

20. “We are not myths of the past, ruins in the jungle, or zoos. We are people and we want to be respected, not to be victims of intolerance and racism.”

21. “Tales of a Mother/Confessor”

22. “When you can’t find someone to follow, you have to find a way to lead by example.”

23. “Sometimes, oh God, the Green Mile is so long.”

24. Defining freedom cannot amount to simply substituting it with inclusion. Countering the criminalization of Black girls requires fundamentally altering the relationship between Black girls and the institutions of power that have worked to reinforce their subjugation. History has taught us that civil rights are but one component of a larger movement for this type of social transformation. Civil rights may be at the core of equal justice movements, and they may elevate an equity agenda that protects our children from racial and gender discrimination, but they do not have the capacity to fully redistribute power and eradicate racial inequity. There is only one practice that can do that. Love.

25. “History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own.” —Michelle Obama, former first lady of the United States. Learn how to respond to a racist comment when you’re figuring out how to speak up.

26. “It's injustice I hate, not the Normans.”

27. Sal: What the fuck, are you deaf?

28. “A lot of these films were works of art, but they were also very importantly used as political agitprop themselves,” says Trussell of Gillo Pontecorvo’s 1966 historical drama drawn from the Algerian War, which screened at BAM as part of this March’s Rise Up! Portraits of Resistance program, which was co-curated by Clark and Trussell. “Revolutionaries around the world studied The Battle of Algiers almost like a textbook for how you could potentially have this armed resistance within different spaces, and that idea frequently crosses over to this moment that we’re talking about, where it’s art, it’s political, it’s both an organizing tool and a personal reflection—it’s all of these things at once. It’s a real hallmark of this revolutionary kind of cinema.”

29. “Let me tell you the story of Right Hand, Left Hand. It’s a tale of good and evil. Hate: it was with this hand that Cain iced his brother. Love: these five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. ” ― Radio Raheem

30. “You can’t let your father’s mistakes define who you are. You get to decide what kind of king you are going to be.” – Nakia

31. “History has shown us that courage can be contagious, and hope can take on a life of its own." –Michelle ObamaRD.COM

32. “I live in a castle, Tony! Alone. And rich white people pay me to play piano for them because it makes them feel cultured. But as soon as I step off that stage, I go right back to being just another nigger to them. Because that is their true culture. And I suffer that slight alone, because I'm not accepted by my own people 'cause I'm not like...” (CONTINUE READING)

33. “I think that’s what people most always do with the stuff they can’t make out - just forget it.”

34. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.

35. It doesn’t cost much, and takes less time than it took to read this message

36. Mookie: And who’s your favorite movie star?

37. We need justice for George Floyd. We all witnessed his murder in broad daylight. We're broken and we're disgusted, we cannot normalize this pain. No more senseless killings of human beings. No more seeing people of color as less than human. We can no longer look away.

38. “This is the first time I ever felt really actually in danger of hell.”

39. “For me the history of the place of Black people in this country is so varied, complex and beautiful. And impactful.”

40. We don't want to see Targets burning. We want to see the system that sets up for systemic racism burned to the ground.

41. “We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.RD.COM

42. “Hey, Sal, how come they ain’t no brothas on the wall?” ― Buggin’ Out

43. “The winners of this category, all they have is this Oscar and going home in an Honda Civic.”

44. “The American white relegates the black to the rank of shoeshine boy; and he concludes from this that the black is good for nothing but shining shoes.”

45. “For [Sasha] to have wonderful role models like this, who work hard, know how to play like a team, are incredibly poised…that’s the kind of models you want for your children.”

46. We don't know when these protests will subside. We hope and pray that no one else will be killed. But we also know that very little will change. The anger and the frustration we see playing out once again in our streets is just a reminder of how little we’ve grown as a country from our original sin of slavery. This is our pandemic. It infects all of us, and in 400 years we've yet to find a vaccine.

47. “It didn’t matter how good I was. It was always, ‘You’re a girl. You can’t play with the guys’. It has always been motivation for me.”

48. “You have to love your sport. Your passion and dedication can’t be some-time, part-time or spare-time. It has to be all-time.”

49. You can't separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.

50. “I’m just happy to take on that ‘Mamba’ mentality into the next phase of my life.”

51. “If you don’t have a desire to get better, you won’t be in this league a long time because there’s always somebody coming, trying to get your spot.”

52. “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn’t matter which color does the hating. It’s just plain wrong.”

53. “What's the point of having a voice if you're gonna be silent in those moments you shouldn't be?”

54. “Team playing, that’s what I see when I’m out there watching the WNBA games. All the girls play as a team, and they have each other’s backs, and that’s great”.

55. “Achievement has no color.”

56. “I will not abandon someone to die, when I have the means to save his life.” – T’Challa

57. I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough.

58. “Don’t you know sugar is brown first? White folks couldn’t stand the fact that something so sweet shared the same color as the people who cut the cane, slopped the hogs and picked the cotton. So they bleached it to resemble them, and now they done gone and fooled everybody. You included.”

59. “My only advice is to stay aware, listen carefully, and yell for help if you need it.”

60. “I always said I’m a teacher who writes or an editor who writes. But I never said the real thing until after I’d written a third book. It’s the sort of thing that women frequently do. They sort of need permission to tell themselves that this is the work they do.”

61. If you think about that unease that you felt watching that Target being looted, try to imagine how it must feel for black Americans when they watch themselves being looted every single day,. Because that is fundamentally what is happening in America. Police in America are looting black bodies. And I know someone might think that's an extreme phrase, but it's not.

62. “- Karl Zielinski: Mary, a person with an engineer's mind should be an engineer. You can't be a computer the rest of your life.

63. “The WNBA changed the equation for a young female broadcaster who wanted nothing more than to remain close to the game, and call basketball games.”

64. “After all those years as a woman hearing ‘not thin enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not this enough, not that enough,’ almost overnight I woke up one morning and thought, ‘I’m enough.’”

65. “- Stanley Uris: What's the Black Spot?

66. People don't realize what's really going on in this country. There are a lot things that are going on that are unjust. People aren't being held accountable for. And that's something that needs to change. That's something that this country stands for: freedom, liberty and justice for all.

67. “You know, I grew up around black people my whole life. I mean, if the truth be told, I probably know niggas better than you. And don't go getting offended by my use of the quote-unquote N-word. I have a black wife and two biracial kids, so I feel I have a right. I don't give a God damn what that prick Spike Lee says. Tarantino was right. Nigger...” (CONTINUE READING)

68. People say I talk so slow today. That's no surprise. I calculated I've taken 29,000 punches. But I earned $57 million and I saved half of it. So I took a few hard knocks. Do you know how many black men are killed every year by guns and knives without a penny to their names? I may talk slow, but my mind is OK.

69. “Jada boycotting the Oscars is like me boycotting Rihanna’s panties, I wasn’t invited.”

70. “And to be blunt it’s the demographic of who’s playing. Women’s soccer players generally are cute little White girls while WNBA players, we are all shapes and sizes … a lot of Black, gay, tall women … there is maybe an intimidation factor and people are quick to judge it and put it down.”

71. “I wish I could say that racism and prejudice were only distant memories. We must dissent from the indifference. We must dissent from the apathy. We must dissent from the fear, the hatred and the mistrust…We must dissent because America can do better, because America has no choice but to do better.”

72. “I dug deep to keep my faith and it was the love from so many of you that helped keep me going. From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone for your help,” Griner said.

73. “Not only did you knock me down, you stepped on my brand-new white Air Jordans I just bought, and that’s all you can say is excuse me?” ― Buggin’ Out

74. Enough is enough! What will it take? A civil war? A new president? Violent riots? It's tired. I'm tired. The country is tired! You don't put fear in people when you do this, you just show how coward[ly] you are – and how America is really not the land of the free.

75. “I just can’t see God putting a gift like that in the hands of a man who would kill a child.”

76. “Racism is beyond common sense and has no place in our society.”

77. “I couldn’t help it. I tried to take it back, but it was too late.”

78. “You little slanty-eyed, me-no-speaky-American, own-every-fruit-and-vegetable-stand-in-New-York, bullshit, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Summer Olympics ’88, Korean kick-boxing son of a bitch. ” [speaking to officer Long] ― Stevie

79. “The people who do this thing, who practice racism, are bereft. That is something distorted about the psyche. It’s a huge waste and it’s a corruption and a distortion.”

80. “ There has been racism, sexism and now there is 'species-ism.' People think that they are better than other creatures.”

81. “If homosexuality being inborn is what makes it acceptable, why does racism being inborn not make racism acceptable?”

82. No matter how much money you have, no matter how famous you are, no matter how many people admire you, being black in America is tough. And we got a long way to go for us as a society and for us as African Americans until we feel equal in America.

83. “The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.”

84. “Check out a movie about a room full of white people.”

85. ”You have to not only love the game, you have to love the training, the practice, and the competing. You have to love everything about it.”

86. “I didn’t want to speak for Black people and I wanted to speak to, and to be among them… it’s us. So the first thing I had to do was to eliminate the white gaze.”

87. “But if you start from the idea that Blacks are indeed human, then every commitment to equality after that will be unshakable. And that is the thing to be learned from the 1688 petition. Blacks do not need allies who fight for our inclusion; rather, we need people who are possessed of the basic belief that we are human and that any arguments that depend on rejecting that proposition are tyrannical, unjust, and to be fought.”

88. “Ask those diversity questions to white people and not just the brown people. Ask everyone.”

89. “I just expect to be treated like you expect to be treated. Come on, what are you so afraid of? Once you try you see there's nothing to fear. We're just as weak and human as you are.”

90. It is never too late to give up your prejudices.

91. “Religious discrimination is not like racial discrimination. One you choose for yourself, the other God chose for you.”

92. “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war. And until there are no longer first-class and second-class citizens of any nation, until the colour of a man's skin is of no more significance than the colour of his eyes. And until the basic human rights are equally guaranteed to all without regard to race, there is war. And until that day, the dream of lasting peace, world citizenship, rule of international morality, will remain but a fleeting illusion to be pursued, but never attained... now everywhere is war.”

93. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., American minister and activist. Read these Juneteenth quotes that will inspire you to keep fighting for equality.

94. “The shorts came in short or extra short. As soon as I heard that — ‘sleek and sexy’ — I was like, ‘Um, excuse me, I play basketball.’

95. Grain for the fields,

96. “I’ve learned a lot of lessons. Basketball has taught me a lot. Basketball has taken me a lot of places. I think it’s about people, about teams, the dynamics of teams. Obviously, I’ve learned how to run a pick-and-roll, read screens, call offenses and defenses, and read all those kinds of things. But I think for me, the greatest blessing of all of this has just been the people I’ve been able to meet, the friendships, the impact that I’ve been able to have in my community and with other people.” she shared with ESPN in 2016.

97. “I think racism is a terrible thing. I think we should all learn to hate each other on a individual basis.”

98. “- Hector Guzman: You racist Americans. You just want to cut us poor Hispanics completely out of the market.

99. “When I'm born I'm black, when I grow up I'm black, when I'm in the sun I'm black, when I'm sick I'm black, when I die I'm black, and you... when you're born you're pink, when you grow up you're white, when you're cold you're blue, when you're sick you're blue, when you die you're green and you dare call me colored”

100. “You cannot achieve unless you believe… in yourself. You are more capable than you think.”

101. “I’ve been on extremely talented teams that just don’t click, and I’ve also been on team with a little bit less talent, but they clicked, and because they clicked, they did better than other talented teams I’ve been on.”

102. “I want to dedicate this to the LGBT community around the world. I stand here tonight as a proud gay man and I hope that we can all stand as equals one day.”

103. “You need to be more careful, or you could hurt yourself."

104. “It is not our differences that divide us. It is our inability to recognize, accept, and celebrate those differences.” —Audre Lorde, poet.

105. We've come a long way in our thinking, but also in our moral decay. I can't imagine Dr. King watching the Real Housewives or Jersey Shore.

106. “Don’t vote for weirdo billionaires.”

107. “You learn about equality in history and civics, but you find out life is not really like that.”

108. Mookie: Pino, all you ever talk about is nigga this and nigga that, and all your favorite people are so-called niggas

109. If you're calling for an end to unrest, but not calling out police brutality, not calling for health care as a human right, not calling for an end to housing discrimination, all you're asking for is the continuation of quiet oppression.

110. “The film begins as a languid comedy set on the hottest day of the year, but the tensions build and it ends up in mass civil unrest, kicked off by Spike Lee himself—[Mookie], the character he plays—throwing a garbage can through the window after Radio Raheem [Bill Nunn] is choked by the cops,” Clark says of Lee’s acclaimed 1989 movie. “It’s really interesting to go back and read the responses to the film at the time, which seemed to focus more on the destruction of property than the death of Radio Raheem—and that was, ostensibly, liberal critics. It’s amazing to see those patterns repeat now, specifically in the discourse of people focusing more on the destruction of property than on lives that are lost. The film also ends with contrasting quotes on the use of violence as self-defense vs. the use of non-violence with Malcom [X] and Martin [Luther King, Jr.].”

111. “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” –Eugene IonescoRD.COM

112. “It’s time for the colour of our skin to become as irrelevant as the length of our hair.”

113. “For me, this opportunity is not a step down, sideways, backwards, somehow different than the men’s game. Basketball is for everyone. It’s for everybody. That’s what makes it such a beautiful game.”

114. “You’re a good man with a good heart. And it’s hard for a good man to be king.” – King T’Chaka

115. “We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up business and dirty shops. They ought to go.”

116. Mookie: Pino, who’s your favorite basketball player?

117. “Sometimes they have to kill us. They have to kill us, because they can't break our spirit.”

118. “Percy wanted not just to kill the mouse but to squash it.”

119. “The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery.”

120. “A black girl would have to invent the cure for cancer before they even gave her a TV movie.”

121. “Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.”

122. “As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it—whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash”

123. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” —Langston HughesRD.COM

124. “The story of the Negro in America is the story of America, and it is not a pretty story.”

125. “You don’t have to be the best… but you have to be YOUR best.”

126. “- Rayford Gibson: [after being denied pie] Look, My Name's Ray Gibson I'm from New York. Let's talk Turkey, how much will it cost for you turn two of those whites-only pies into two nigger pies?

127. “Time takes it all, whether you want it to or not.”

128. “We are living in an era marked by the spread of integration and miscegenation. The Brown decision. The Brown decision, forced upon us by the Jewish-controlled puppets on the U.S. Supreme Court, compelling white children to go to school with an inferior race, is the final nail in a coffin, is the final nail in a black coffin towards America...” (CONTINUE READING)

129. “I get up before the sun rises. Always get up early. I want to beat the sun. So I have to be there just before it comes up. It’s the best time.”

130. “For me, being tall was very positive because I thought my mom was the most beautiful person ever.”

131. “Activism is my rent for living on the planet.” —Alice Walker, novelist, poet, social activist.

132. “I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses, the right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes, now, that’s right. Ooh, it’s a devastating right and Hate is hurt, he’s down. Left-Hand Hate KOed by Love. ” ― Radio Raheem

133. We are independent and have no billionaire owner pulling the strings, so your money directly powers our reporting

134. “The in memoriam montage is just going to be black people who were shot by the cops on the way to the movies.”

135. “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization.” —Mahatma Gandhi, lawyer, politician, social activist, writer.

136. “We wanna thank you all for makin’ our lives just a little brighter here on We Love Radio!” ― Mister Senor Love Daddy

137. “Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned...

138. “Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.” —Eugene Ionesco, Romanian-French playwright. Before you start singing to your little one, learn which children’s nursery rhymes are actually racist.

139. “The need for change bulldozed a road down the center of my mind.” —Maya Angelou, poet, civil rights activist.

140. “What is it you most dislike? Stupidity, especially in its nastiest forms of racism and superstition.”

141. “Rocky takes place in a world where white athletes are as good as black athletes. Rocky is a science-fiction film.”

142. “I know you’re going to go out there and kill it.”

143. “Guns. So primitive.” – Okoye [Think about gun violence and the black lives taken by gunshots…]

144. “Racism, in the first place, is a weapon used by the wealthy to increase the profits they bring in by paying Black workers less for their work.”

145. For years, with every horrific murder of an innocent Black man, woman or child, I have always tried to find the right words to express my condolences and outrage, but the privilege I am afforded by the color of my skin has often left me feeling like this is not a fight I can truly take on as my own. Not today, not anymore... Even though I will never know the pain and suffering they have endured, or what it feels like to try to survive in a world plagued by systemic racism, I know I can use my own voice to help amplify those voices that have been muffled for too long.

146. “Climate change is real and it’s happening right now. It’s the most urgent issue affecting our species.”

147. “Have you any idea what it's like to live with all this? People look at us and only see bigots and racists. Hatred isn't something you're born with. It gets taught. At school, they said segregation what's said in the Bible... Genesis 9, Verse 27. At 7 years of age, you get told it enough times, you believe it. You believe the hatred. You live...” (CONTINUE READING)

148. Buggin’ Out: You the man

149. Sal: Turn that jungle music off! We ain’t in Africa!

150. “My father was a white and my mother was black. Them call me half-caste or whatever. Me don’t dip on nobody’s side. Me don’t dip on the black man’s side nor the white man’s side. Me dip on God’s side, the one who create me and cause me to come from black and white.”

151. Buggin’ Out: Yo, Mookie

152. “…to get to a place where you could love anything you chose – not to need permission for desire – well now, that was freedom.”

153. “How do you think your ancestors got these? Did they pay a fair price, or did they take them, like they took everything else?” – Erik “Killmonger”

154. “There’s a really great film by the great filmmaker Charles Burnett called The Glass Shield, which is about a young black man [Michael Boatman] going into the LAPD with sort of high hopes about what he can do there and then seeing, from inside, the nature of the systemic corruption and how that can even infect him as a black man inside this space,” Trussell says. He adds that the movie, made a few years after the 1992 Los Angeles riots following the acquittal of the four officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, addresses the concept of “policing as something that crosses all color lines within the police forces themselves.”

155. 50VIEW OPTIONS24062a9a4d4c44669ca198f9580181cb

156. George Floyd's murder is not only an outrage. It is the latest manifestation of a system that callously devalues the lives of Black people. Our struggle is and always has been about justice — not justice on paper, but real justice in the real lives of real people.

157. “We die. That may be the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

158. It’s important for us to also understand that the phrase 'Black Lives Matter' simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African Americans that needs to be addressed. It's not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter. It’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability.

159. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Martin Luther King, Jr.RD.COM

160. “Please boss, don’t put that thing over my face, don’t put me in the dark. I’s afraid of the dark.”

161. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” –Barack ObamaRD.COM

162. “Pit race against race, religion against religion, prejudice against prejudice. Divide and conquer! We must not let that happen here.”

163. “The right hand: the hand of love. The story of life is this: static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. ” ― Radio Raheem

164. “Y’all sitting up here all comfortable. Must feel good. Meanwhile, there’s about two billion people all over the world that look like us, but their lives are a lot harder.” – Erik “Killmonger”

165. We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I'm talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity.

166. “There’s no better way to learn than to watch the pros do it. The WNBA is a beautiful game to watch.”

167. “I play with the mentality that no one can stop me, and no one ever will be able to stop me.”

168. “Since I’ve been five, people asked me if we’re related. It is usually the third question in the line of questions. What’s your name? Sue Bird. Oh, what do you do? I play basketball. Are you related to Larry Bird? That’s how it goes. I guess it could be worse, though, since he is a legend and all.”

169. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” —Nelson MandelaRD.COM

170. “What’s the world for you if you can’t make it up the way you want it?”

171. “It comes as a great shock, around the age of five or six or seven, to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you. It comes as a great shock to discover the country which is your birthplace and to which you owe your life and your identity has not in its whole system of...” (CONTINUE READING)

172. “I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.”

173. “Before the WNBA, America didn’t have basketball players to look up to if they were girls. Now they can see us and dream of being like us.”

174. “Do you mean to kill him, you cowards? Do you mean to kill the man who saved Melinda Moores’s life, who tried to save those little girls’ lives? Well, at least there will be one less black man in the world, won’t there? You can console yourselves with that. One less n*gger.”

175. Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

176. If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.

177. “The f*ck is wrong with you? This ain’t about money. I could give a f*ck about money. ” ― Sal

178. “Hating people because of their color is wrong. And it doesn't matter which color does the hating. It's just plain wrong.”

179. Our quality, investigative journalism is a scrutinising force at a time when the rich and powerful are getting away with more and more

180. “A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” —Malcom X, American minister.

181. “Navigating a white male world was not threatening. It wasn’t even interesting. I was more interesting than they were. I knew more than they did. And I wasn’t afraid to show it.”

182. It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

183. “Great, another broken white boy for us to fix. This is going to be fun.” — Shuri

184. “Ignorance and prejudice are the handmaidens of propaganda. Our mission, therefore, is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”

185. Mookie: And who’s your favorite rock star? Prince. You’re a Prince freak

186. If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends. You talk to your enemies.

187. “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.RD.COM

188. “Yeah, I love being famous. It's almost like being white, y'know?”

189. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” –Malcolm XRD.COM

190. “Jay-Z, for a lot of reasons, will always be my favorite. But actually, in terms of what I listen to, it bends towards hip-hop, but I like everything. The only thing I don’t really love is country, but everything else I’m a huge fan of.”

191. Struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.

192. “What do Japanese Jews love to eat? Hebrew National Tsunami.”

193. We all decry prejudice, yet are all prejudiced.

194. “I’m rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I’m tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we’s comin from or goin to or why. I’m tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I’m tired of all the times I’ve wanted to help and couldn’t. I’m tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it’s the pain. There’s too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can’t.”

195. “Can you see her? Her raped, beaten, broken body soaked in their urine, soaked in their semen, soaked in her blood, left to die. Can you see her? I want you to picture that little girl. Now imagine she's white.”

196. “We will look at when we play, how we play, who are our fans, and how do we broaden the pool that is already aggregated. From top to bottom, everything is on the table for how we improve the business.”

197. “To return to Spike Lee, Malcolm X, which is a big film from 1992, integrates footage of the Rodney King beating into the main credits,” Clark says of the film, for which Denzel Washington received an Oscar nomination. “Lee is someone who has always been unafraid to integrate and intercut extremely contemporary things, which at the time can sometimes feel a little bit like he’s overdoing it or he’s too on-the-nose, but then the longer that racism goes unaddressed or gets worse, the more timely and powerful his films seem to become.” (Lee employs a similar tactic in 2018’s BlacKkKlansman, which concludes with footage of the prior year’s Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville.)

198. “It’s from Spectre, the latest James Bond film that I did not see.”

199. “There's a reason that you're this... terrible mouth, and it’s very simple. You're mama bear... and they're your little baby cubs.”

200. “Draft Day, when we drafted Elena. Honestly, I didn’t watch her play that much… just knowing that she wanted to be here with the Sky made me feel a whole lot better… she’s that package that we’ve been needing.”

201. “Dago, wop, guinea, garlic-breath, pizza-slingin’, spaghetti-bendin’, Vic Damone, Perry Como, Luciano Pavarotti, Sole Mio, nonsingin’ motherfucker. ” [speaking to Sal] ― Mookie

202. “You see this f*cking place? I built this f*cking place with my bare f*cking hands. Every light socket, every piece of tile – me, with these f*cking hands. ” ― Sal

203. I destroy my enemies when I make them my friends.

204. “We've got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don't fight racism with racism. We're gonna fight racism with solidarity.”

205. “It’s not enough to just listen and agree, we must take action.”

206. Gentile or Jew,

207. “What good is a deed? My grandfathers and great uncles, grandmothers and great aunts, father and mother, broke, tilled, thawed, planted, plucked, raised, burned, broke again. Worked this land all they life, this land that never would be theirs. They worked until they sweated. They sweated until they bled. They bled until they died. Died with the...” (CONTINUE READING)

208. “I Am Not Your Negro, by the Haitian filmmaker Raoul Peck, is a propulsive documentary about James Baldwin, his writings and his times,” says Clark. In her review of the film, which includes many clips of Baldwin and narration by Samuel L. Jackson, reading an unfinished book project by Baldwin, TIME’s critic Stephanie Zacharek wrote that “Peck’s aim seems to be to reintroduce Baldwin and his way of thinking to the world. Not that Baldwin is forgotten, but sometimes we need a bold red arrow to help us redirect our thinking, especially in a media world as cluttered and noisy as ours.”

209. “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” —Indira Gandhi, former prime minister of India.

210. “You let the refugees in, they bring their problems with them, and then Wakanda is like everywhere else.” – W’Kabi [sarcastic/ironic — those who refuse to let refugees enter the US. I remember the spirit of the founding of the states was taking refugees in… am I wrong? Should we see refugees as problems or blessings? Every human life is sacred. And it is biblical teaching to take care of refugees.]

211. “I literally started clapping when I saw Charlize Theron. She’s so beautiful.”

212. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something, and don't you forget it — whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.

213. “You are growing into consciousness, and my wish for you is that you feel no need to constrict yourself to make other people comfortable.”

214. “Hey. The only ass-kicking that’s gonna be done around here is gonna be done by me. ”― Sal

215. Until the philosophy which hold one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned —everywhere is war.

216. “The Black Panther lives.” — Shuri [Thinking of Black Panther Party. The party became history, but black people’s rights must continue to be advocated, racial justice must be fulfilled.]

217. “The way the editors decided on what to cover was, they said, part art and part science… I used to always tweak them. I’d say that sounded like excuses, and I reminded them that’s the way the old boys’ network always cut down on minorities and women getting jobs.”

218. I think police brutality is probably extremely severe in America, but racism is alive everywhere. Everywhere.

219. “You can't hate the roots of a tree and not hate the tree.”

220. Sal: What’d I tell you about that noise?

221. “It is my duty to fight for who I… for the things I love.” — Nakia

222. “To tell you the truth, boss, I don’t know much of anything.”

223. Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.

224. “You were wrong – all of you were wrong – to turn your backs on the rest of the world! We let the fear of discovery stop us from doing what is right. No more! I cannot stay here with you. I cannot rest while he sits on the throne! He is a monster of our own making! I must take the mantle back. I must! I must right these wrongs!” – T’Challa

225. “- Jojo Betzler: I said to draw where Jews live. This is just a stupid picture of my head.

226. “I started playing basketball at age 15, so I was a little late playing basketball, but the love of the sport is what drove me, and I wanted to learn everything there was about it.”

227. “When you get upset, when you get mad, you turn red, right? When you get envoius, or sick, you turn green. When you become cowardly, you turn yellow; and ya'll got the nerve to call us colored?”

228. “Racism should never have happened and so you don't get a cookie for reducing it.”

229. “Racism, xenophobia and unfair discrimination have spawned slavery, when human beings have bought and sold and owned and branded fellow human beings as if they were so many beasts of burden.”

230. “America needs to understand Islam, because this is the one religion that erases from its society the race problem. Throughout my travels in the Muslim world, I have met, talked to, and even eaten with people who in America would have been considered white, but the white attitude was removed from their minds by the religion of Islam. I have never before seen sincere and true brotherhood practiced by all together, irrespective of their color.”

231. “Today’s temperature’s gonna rise up over 100 degrees, so there’s a Jheri curl alert! That’s right, Jheri curl alert. If you have a Jheri curl, stay in the house or you’ll end up with a permanent black helmet on your head fuh-eva!” ― Mister Senor Love Daddy

232. “What they were seeing was black.”

233. I love blackness, it is stunning, majestic, inspiring but it is also not here to serve non-black people when it suits them via sports, music, hairstyles, entertainment etc. It should be respected in the workplace and shouldn’t be ignored when it’s crying out in fear of being killed.⁣ You really want that utopian ideal of what our world could be? You want to be proudly and ACTIVELY anti-racist, more than fearing being called a racist? I want that for you too.⁣ If so, then do the work, educate yourself and others stand by us loudly, consistently, FOREVER.

234. “The color of the skin is in no way connected with strength of the mind or intellectual powers.”

235. “All over the planet our people suffer because they do not have the tools to fight back.” – Erik “Killmonger” [Supposed ‘our people’ and ‘people… that look like us’ mean black people]

236. “We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers. Our abundance has brought us neither peace of mind nor serenity of spirit.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., American minister and activist. Learn which Black-owned businesses you can support all year round.

237. As long as people can be judged by the color of their skin, the problem is not solved.

238. “'You're not the first black woman [Mrs. Chamberlain] has hired to work for her family, and you probably won't be the last.' 'Okay...?' Emira sat down. She didn't mean to sound flippant, but she doubted that Kelley could really tell her anything she didn't already know. Emira had met several 'Mrs. Chamberlains' before...It wasn't that Emira didn't understand the racially charged history that Kelley was alluding to, but she couldn't help but think that if she weren't working for this Mrs. Chamberlain, she'd probably be working for another one.”

239. I look at an ant and I see myself: a native South African, endowed by nature with a strength much greater than my size so I might cope with the weight of a racism that crushes my spirit.

240. “I took control of my own destiny, at age 7, and threw my hearing aids out… I wanted to fit in, and be like everybody else.”

241. “She is a friend of my mind. She gather me, man. The pieces I am, she gather them and give them back to me and all the right order. It’s good, you know, when you’ve got a woman who is a friend of your mind.”

242. “This documentary is about a 21-year-old Black Panther leader from Chicago who was one of the great inspiring speakers of the 20th century and was cut down in his youth by the FBI and the Chicago police department,” Trussell says. “It directly gets back to this idea of the ways that black dissent and black protest has been destroyed and bodies have been murdered and that process keeps repeating itself over and over again. The film isn’t that easy to [find], which speaks to the fact that with so much of the history of black radical cinema on-screen, it’s not always as easy as going to Netflix and queuing up five films in a row. These are frequently films that were suppressed, that have had secondary or minor distribution—and that’s a major part of the narrative of black radical cinema.”

243. If I take your race away, and there you are, all strung out. And all you got is your little self, and what is that? What are you without racism? Are you any good? Are you still strong? Are you still smart? Do you still like yourself? I mean, these are the questions. Part of it is, 'Yes, the victim. How terrible it's been for black people.' I'm not a victim. I refuse to be one ... if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. And my feeling is that white people have a very, very serious problem, and they should start thinking about what they can do about it. Take me out of it.

244. “Anyone's guilty who lets these things happens and pretends like it isn't. No, he was guilty all right. Just as guilty as the fanatics who pulled the trigger. Maybe we all are.”

245. “[Prison] relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging with the problems of our society, especially those produced by racism and, increasingly, global capitalism.”

246. “On the court, everything has to be perfect.”

247. “The wide corridor up the center of E Block was floored with linoleum the color of tired old limes, and so what was called the Last Mile at other prisons was called the Green Mile at Cold Mountain.”

248. “In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.”

249. “Achievement has no color”

250. “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.” —Indira GandhiRD.COM

251. “My world did not shrink because I was a Black female writer. It just got bigger.”

252. Many the gifts,

253. “Racism is man’s gravest threat to man – the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.”

254. “I’ve worked my whole life to become a great basketball player. When I see that jersey go up, I’m sure I’m gonna have flashbacks to when I was 4 and 5 years old playing in my driveway because I loved it. I still love it to this day. It’s been one of my first loves in life: basketball.”

255. “It’s cheap, I got a good price for you, Mayor Koch, ‘How I’m doing,’ chocolate-egg-cream-drinking, bagel-and-lox, B’nai B’rith Jew asshole. ” ― Sonny

256. “Thank God for the white male power structure.”

257. Protest is not the end of progress, it is the beginning ... I stand with Minneapolis. I believe in us. Change is gonna come.

258. “You Goya bean-eating, 15-in-a-car, 30-in-an-apartment, pointed shoes, red-wearing, Menudo, mire-mire Puerto Rican cocksucker. Yeah, you!” [speaking to Sonny] ― Officer Long

259. “It’s strange how pain marks our faces, and makes us look like family.”

260. Prejudices are the props of civilization.

261. You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist.

262. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.” —Nelson Mandela, former President of South Africa, political leader, philanthropist.

263. “The world is changing. Soon there will only be the conquered and the conquerors. I’d rather be the former.” – W’Kabi [What other options can we have? Continue pondering on next quote.]

264. “The pianokeys are black and white

265. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” —Langston Hughes, American poet. After reading these anti-racism quotes, be aware of these everyday examples of white privilege you may not have noticed.

266. “I really don’t do frocks and I absolutely don’t do heels. As far as I’m concerned, I’m really dressed up.”

267. “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racist make them.”

268. White feelings should never be held in higher regard than black lives.

269. “A young basketball player has people to look up to an emulate. We are a pro league, and we’re on television. It makes a difference. It’s shows what’s possible.”

270. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

271. “Ain’t just me bredren that are getting overlooked, it’s people of all colours. How come there’s no Oscar for dem hard-working little yellow people wiv tiny dongs. You know, the Minions.”

272. “I didn’t fall in love, I rose in it.”

273. “Working with him was sort of like trying to defuse a bomb with somebody standing behind you and every now and then clashing a pair of cymbals together. In a word, upsetting.”

274. It's up to all of us — Black, white, everyone — no matter how well-meaning we think we might be, to do the honest, uncomfortable work of rooting it out.

275. It is white people's responsibility to be less fragile; people of color don’t need to twist themselves into knots trying to navigate us as painlessly as possible.

276. “I have a dream that one day little black boys and girls will be holding hands with little white boys and girls.”

277. “A man once asked me . . . how I managed in my books to write such natural conversation between men when they were by themselves. Was I, by any chance, a member of a large, mixed family with a lot of male friends? I replied that, on the contrary, I was an only child and had practically never seen or spoken to any men of my own age till I was about twenty-five. ‘Well,’ said the man, ‘I shouldn’t have expected a woman (meaning me to have been able to make it so convincing.’ I replied that I had coped with this difficult problem by making my men talk, as far as possible, like ordinary human beings. This aspect of the matter seemed to surprise the other speaker; he said no more but took it away to chew it over. One of these days it may quite likely occur to him that women, as well as men, when left to themselves, talk very much like human beings also.”

278. “Atonement was powerful; it was the lock on the door you closed against the past. ”

279. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” —Martin Luther King, Jr., American minister and activist.

280. “Our weapons will not be used to wage war on the world. It is not our way to be judge, jury, and executioner for people who are not our own.” – T’Challa

281. “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at peace unless he has his freedom.” —Malcolm X, American minister.

282. “When I was teaching at Princeton, I had one course in creative writing. And I would tell the students… I do not want you to write anything about your little life. I know you have been taught to write about what you know. I’m telling you, do not do that. You don’t know anything. So I want you to invent.”

283. “Heal me so you can lock me up? Nah… Bury me in the ocean, with my ancestors that jumped

284. “I can’t stand black guys. I would never touch one. It’s gross.”

285. If now isn’t a good time for the truth, I don't see when we'll get to it.

286. “That’s how the WNBA is a lot of times. It’s being in the right place at the right time and fulfilling a role. All of us in some way, shape, or form are role players. We have to do what our teams need of us.”

287. “I believe in white supremacy, until the blacks are educated to a point of responsibility. I don’t believe giving authority and positions of leadership and judgment to irresponsible people … I don’t feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from [the Native Americans] … Our so-called stealing of this country from them was just a matter of survival. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.”

288. “Appeals weren’t for the likes of John Coffey, not back then.”

289. “There are a bunch of films from the late ’70s and ’80s that are really important documentaries about civil unrest and police brutality in the U.K.,” Clark says. “The key one is called Handsworth Songs, directed by John Akomfrah and the Black Audio Film Collective.” The film, described when screened at BAM last year as a “freeform documentary mosaic,” uses the 1985 Handsworth riots in Birmingham, England, to examine broader racial tensions in the country.

290. “How many times do I have to teach you: just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.” — Shuri

291. “I was raised to believe that excellence is the best deterrent to racism or sexism. And that’s how I operate my life.”

292. “You want to see us become just like the people you hate so much! Divide and conquer, just as they did!” – T’Challa

293. “So many have contributed to my journey, it would be all too simple to deem my career a single effort. It is not. I am a product of a village.”

294. “Once upon a time they was two girls," I say. "one girl had black skin, one girl had white."

295. “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”

296. “You cannot go to a 7-11 or Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian Accent.”

297. “He kill them with they love.”

298. Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together.

299. “I’m sorry for what I am.”

300. “As a woman athlete I know that there’s roughly the same amount of guys coming up asking for autographs on my jersey as there are girls. Times are changing. I don’t think my daughter has ever heard ‘You play like a girl’ because that’s not acceptable nowadays. We’re starting with the correct generation. The generation that I believe has it wrong? Well, I don’t have any words for them.”

301. “Is Hollywood racist? You’re damn right Hollywood’s racist. But it isn’t the racist you’ve grown accustomed to. Hollywood is sorority racist. It’s like: ‘We like you, Rhonda, but you’re not a Kappa.’ That’s how Hollywood is.”

302. “Don’t be so humble. You’re not that good.”

303. “Ever since I’ve been in Phoenix I’ve made it a point to support the [Phoenix] Mercury players and support the WNBA as a whole… I’m inspired by them, which made it easy to wear the hoodie and give them the support they deserve.”

304. “To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.”

305. “Dr. Martin Luther King is not a black hero. He is an American hero.”

306. We have a right to protest for what is right. That's all we can do. There are people hurting, there are people suffering, so we have an obligation, a mandate, to do something.

307. In a racist society it is not enough to be non-racist, we must be anti-racist.

308. No matter how big a nation is, it is no stronger than its weakest people, and as long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you might otherwise.

309. “Race doesn't really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don't have that choice.”

310. “For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

311. The beauty of anti-racism is that you don't have to pretend to be free of racism to be an anti-racist. Anti-racism is the commitment to fight racism wherever you find it, including in yourself. And it's the only way forward.

312. “Our true nationality is mankind.”

313. “Your heart is so full of hatred. You are not fit to be king.” – Okoye [A leader cannot speak full of hatred. What kind of leader of the nations we need? We say Jesus is king of kings so what kind of King Jesus is?]

314. “Watching these women play isn’t just entertaining – it’s empowering. Their athletic ability, hard work and determination are unmatched.”

315. “People know about the Klan and the overt racism, but the killing of one’s soul little by little, day after day, is a lot worse than someone coming in your house and lynching you.”

316. “Yes, he is quite handsome I suppose.”

317. Mookie: Pino, fuck you, fuck your fuckin’ pizza, and fuck Frank Sinatra

318. “No human race is superior; no religious faith is inferior. All collective judgments are wrong. Only racists make them”

319. “On the day of my judgment, when I stand before God, and He asks me why did I kill one of his true miracles, what am I gonna say? That it was my job? My job?”

320. “N’Jobu: No tears for me, son?

321. “Love is divine only and difficult always.”

322. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” —Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. When having these important conversations, make sure you avoid these phrases when talking about race.