racism

"There are many dark chapters in mankind's history ranging from transatlantic slave trade to holocaust to dropping of nuclear bombs. While most are brought up to serve as a reminder of human misdeeds -- one sordid tale often goes unnoticed -- the presence of 'human zoos'. Up until the late 1950s, white Europeans could go and see people from other ethnic backgrounds exhibited in cages for entertainment purposes during trade fairs. Akin to the modern zoos where animals are exhibited, humans, that too of a certain complexion were paraded."

"The palaeoanthropologists of the early twentieth century were thus able to put together a view of human evolution which can be seen as an extension of the cyclic or rhythmic theory of progress advocated throughout the Victorian era. Despite its emphasis on struggle as the means by which higher types displaced their primitive antecedents, this was no product of Darwinian gradualism. Most of its supporters rejected natural selection as the motor of progressive evolution, preferring to invoke some vaguely defined creative force in the central Asian heartland. The fact that both the concept of progress through cycles and the fascination with Asia as the centre of development survived well into the twentieth century reveals the power these Victorian ages had to shape the imagination. The echoes of Max Muller's account of Aryan migrations can still be heard in the theories of human origins by archaeologists and anthropologists committed to the idea of continuous evolution. But once the faith in continuous progress was undermined by growing militarism in the age of imperial rivalries, the model of progress through conquest emerged from the wings to extend its influence over ideas on human origins. The early twentieth century merely extended the sense of racial destiny that had been growing throughout the Victorian era."

"Almost all anthropologists working on the Indian material have been having these archetypes ' before their mind , with the result that each skull has been taken singly and compared with one of the hypothetical racial types. If the comparison shows a closeness to a type , the skull has been regarded as belonging to that particular race . If , on the other hand , the resemblance is less exact , the skull has been relegated to a mixed group . It may very often happen that a single skull shows features that belong to two or more hypothetical types ; in such cases , the skull has been immediately considered to have been the result of mixture of these races . Sometimes , the most likely racial types ' have been considered in the skulls from a particular area , so that the conclusions could generally confirm a conventional story of invasion or migration put forward in history . Since the individual variability in physical characteristics is very great , it has not been difficult to find the type suitable in a particular situation from a collection of skeletal material."

"Legitimization of the colonial state became bound up with the intertwining of archaeology, anthropology and the Aryan theory of linguistic and racial origins."

"Contemporary methodologies, linguistic or archaeological, for determining the spoken language of a remote archaeological culture are virtually nonexistent. Simplified notions of the congruence between an archaeological culture, an ethnic group, and a linguistic affiliation millennia before the existence of texts is mere speculation, often with a political agenda. Archaeology has a long way to go before its methodology allows one to establish which cultural markers, pottery, architecture, burials, etc., are the most reliable for designating ethnic identity."

"Racism did not simply disappear from people’s minds. The suffering of the Sinti and Roma was not recognized after the war. Courts denied survivors compensation. Worse still, they blamed the victims themselves for their persecution. The genocide of the Sinti and Roma was kept secret and denied. Hardly any perpetrators were brought to justice. On the contrary: in offices and authorities, the survivors encountered their former persecutors. The discrimination continued. It is a bitter realization: even in democracy, injustice was long kept quiet and repressed. But in a democracy it was possible to fight against the suppression and silence of crimes. The Sinti and Roma survivors, their children and grandchildren have taken up this fight. They broke the silence and confronted Germany with its crimes. And they insisted on equal rights."

"You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger"—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger.""

"I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for two hundred years."

"When I was in Africa, this voice came to me and said, "Richard, what do you see?" I said, "I see all types of people." The voice said, "But do you see any niggers?" I said, "No." It said, "Do you know why? 'Cause there aren't any." And it hit me like a shot, man. I started crying and shit. … And it made me say, "Oh my God, I've been wrong. I've been wrong. I've got to regroup my shit." I said, "I ain't gonna never call another black man a nigger." … I don't like it when black people say it to me. I really don't no more."

"I noticed that among this class of colored men the word "nigger" was freely used in about the same sense as the word "fellow," and sometimes as a term of almost endearment; but I soon learned that its use was positively and absolutely prohibited to white men."

"I'm going to have to bring up the nigger bill again."

"Muhammad understands the vicious fraud of the Jewish exploitation of the Negro people and, fighting his way from the gutters as we did, he had [sic] demonstrated truly incredible leadership abilities. He has gathered millions of the dirty, immoral, drunken, filthy-mouthed, lazy and repulsive people sneeringly called 'niggers' and inspired them to the point where they are clean, sober, honest, hard working, dignified, dedicated and admirable human beings in spite of their color."

"The nigger race is inherently inferior to the white race intellectually."

"Then I come down to Houston, I went to a bowling alley. I couldn't go bowling, there were no bowling balls. The people here throw 'em all in the sea, thought they were nigger eggs... thought they were nigger eggs."

"The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they learn their place again."

"Negro went to heaven by land. Went there an' knocked on the door. St. Peter come to the do', say,"Who is that?" Nigger say, "This is me." St. Peter say, "You ridin' or walkin'?" Nigger says, "I'm walkin'." St. Peter says, "Well, you can't get in here les'n you're ridin'." Nigger left; come on back down the road about five miles, meets up wid a white man. Say, "Mr. White Man, where you goin'" White man say "I'm goin' to heaven." Nigger say, "You can't git in dere walkin'. I just left dere." Nigger say, "I'll tell you a way we'll get in dere." Nigger say, "Let me be your horse an' you get straddle me an' I'll go ridin' an' carry you up to heaven; an' you knock on de gate an' Salt Peter ask you who you is an' you tell him it's you, an' he gonna say, 'Bof you all come on in.'" White Man says, "All right, get down." White Man straddles the nigger, nigger goes runnin' back up to heaven wid him. Rode him right up to de door. White man knocks on de do'. St. Peter say, "Who is dere?" White Man say, "Dis is me." St. Peter say, "You ridin' or walkin'?" White Man says, "Yes." St. Peter says, "Hitch your damn horse outside an' come on in.""

"Eena, meena, mina, mo, Catch a nigger by his toe; If he squeals let him go, Eena, meena, mina, mo."

"If the slur is mentioned in key court decisions, it should not be taboo in law schools."

"Ten little nigger boys went out to dine; One choked his little self, and then there were nine...One little nigger boy living all alone; He got married, and then there were none."

"The White House is now so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats had taken refuge in the stable."

"I am opposed to the nigger's voting, it matters not what his advertised moral and mental qualifications may be. I am just as much opposed to Booker Washington, with all his Anglo-Saxon reenforcement, voting, as I am to voting by the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon, Andy Dotson, who blacks my shoes every morning. Neither one is fit to perform the supreme functions of citizenship."

"AFRICAN, n. A nigger that votes our way."

"I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches."

"As long as you are black, and you're gonna be black till the day you die, no one's gonna call you by your goddamn name! So no matter what you are called, nigger, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it! Just pretend you're a goddamn piece of furniture!"

"Let's face it. Our ass is in a crack. We're gonna have to let this nigger bill pass."

"Sam, why don't you all let this nigger bill pass?"

"Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he's a nigger."

"In the Deep South, you are dealing with a sheriff or a landlord or a landlady or a girl of the Western Union desk, and she doesn't know quite who she's dealing with—by which I mean, that if you're not a part of the town, and if you are a "northern nigger", it shows in millions of ways. So she simply knows that it's an unknown quantity, and she wants to have nothing to do with it. Because she won't talk to you, you have to wait for a while to get your telegram. Okay, we all know this. We've been through it, and by the time you get to be a man, it's very easy to deal with."

"A jury would not dare convict a white man for killing a nigger in Mississippi."

"Jim Eastland could be standing right in the middle of the worst Mississippi flood ever known, and he'd say the niggers caused it, helped out by the Communists -— but, he'd say, we gotta have help from Washington."

"It is a common saieng; A lion feareth no bugs. But in our childhood our mothers maids have so terrified us with an ouglie divell having hornes on his head, fier in his mouth, and a taile in his breech, eies like a bason, fanges like a dog, clawes like a beare, a skin like a Niger, and a voice roring like a lion, [...] that we are afraid of our owne shadowes."

"When you came pullin' in here, did you notice a sign on the front of my house that said "Dead Nigger Storage"?"

"You fuckin' guys are acting like a bunch of fuckin' niggers! You work with niggers, huh? Just like you two, always sayin' they're gonna kill each other."

"The prosecutor, his voice trembling, added that the "N-word" was so vile he would not utter it. "It's the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.""

"Our nig, our nig!"

"Oraetta Mayflower: There's a word for people like you. Ethelrida Pearl Smutny: No. That's your word. You invented it to make yourself feel bigger. But that's not what I am."

"I jumped aboard de telegraph, And trabbled down de riber, De lectric fluid magnified, And killed five hundred nigger."

"Wid eyes erect, and head hanging down, Like de sprightly hare before de hound, Dis nigger streak it through the pasture, Nigger run fast, white man run faster."

"Douglas, no man will ever be President of the United States who spells 'negro' with two gs."

"O some tell me that a nigger won't steal, But I've seen a nigger in my corn-field; O run, nigger, run, for the patrol will catch you, O run, nigger, run, for 'tis almost day."

"It was fifteen minutes before I could work myself up to go and humble myself to a nigger—but I done it, and I warn't ever sorry for it afterwards, neither."

"Give a nigger an and he’ll take an ."

"Things at the White House Looking mighty curious, Niggers running everywhere, White people furious."

"There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter.... Mississippi's constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics. Not the 'ignorant and vicious', as some of the apologists would have you believe, but the nigger.... Let the world know it just as it is.... In Mississippi we have in our constitution legislated against the racial peculiarities of the Negro.... When that device fails, we will resort to something else."

"Republicanism means Negro equality, while the Democratic Party means that the white man is supreme. That is why we [white] Southerners are all Democrats... History has no record of Negro rule. The situation is grave, and calls for wisdom and all manner of statesmanship. If we had our say, the Negro could never vote. I believe that God made the white man out of better clay than that which the Negro was made from... We don't need another race to help us at this time. In some of the states, the Negro holds the vote of control... In Chicago, the Republicans needed the Negro vote to elect their whole ticket, so a nigger was nominated for judge and elected."

"Two days later, Tillman gave another speech and apparently was offended by the presence of a black man in the audience. Look down that aisle, there's a nigger as black as the ace of spades, the South Carolina Democrat exclaimed. According to a news report, the man was well dressed and only smiled at Tillman's outburst, showing more class in that moment than Tillman had shown in his entire life."

"I call on every red-blooded white man to use any means to keep the niggers away from the polls[;] if you don’t understand what that means you are just plain dumb. I’m calling on every red-blooded American who believes in the superiority and integrity of the white race to get out and see that no nigger votes...and the best time to do that is the night before!”"

"Many southern politicians continued to use extreme language similar to Bilbo’s. Major southern figures such as James Eastland, Richard Russell, Strom Thurmond, and George Wallace played the race card and supported Jim Crow with all their energies well into the 1960s. But they usually avoided the kind of overt racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Italian remarks that Bilbo consistently expressed. Instead they employed code words; these legislators talked of the need to protect the South from “outside agitators” and the necessity of defending “state’s rights,” but rarely used the terms niggers or kikes."

"In every stage of the [Montgomery] bus boycott we have been oppressed and degraded because of black, slimy, juicy, unbearably stinking niggers. … African flesh-eaters. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, slingshots and knives. … All whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers."

"“Othello with his occupation gone,” she teased. “Othello was a nigger,” I said."