Racism Quotes by Derrick Bell

The challenge throughout has been to tell what I view as the truth about racism without causing disabling despair.

— Derrick Bell

Slavery is, as an example of what white America has done, a constant reminder of what white America might do.

— Derrick Bell

My wife says I spend my life trying to teach white folks. I'm not so sure I'm proud of it, but she's…

— Derrick Bell

Few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.

— Derrick Bell

“In ways so closely tied to an individual's sense of self that it may not be apparent, the set of assumptions, privileges,…

— Derrick Bell

“Du Bois reminds us that, to compensate their low wages, segregation gave whites a "public and psychological wage." As whites, they were…

— Derrick Bell

Black people are the magical faces at the bottom of society's well. Even the poorest whites, those who must live their lives…

— Derrick Bell

“What neither Warren nor most of the rest of us recognized was that segregation was not, as Nirej Sekhorn put it, simply…

— Derrick Bell

“time proved that the persistent educational gap between black and white students was only indirectly traceable to segregation. Instead, the root of…

— Derrick Bell

“It is somewhat ironic to have us so deeply disturbed over a program where race is an element of consciousness, and yet…

— Derrick Bell

“This renewed politics of otherness not only allowed entire categories of poor whites to develop a powerful sense of racial belonging, but…

— Derrick Bell

“The Portland school board's policy equated integration and racial assimilation. This policy, Rist explains, is a "means of socializing nonwhite students to…

— Derrick Bell

“Here is a foundation for understanding today what was clear to only a few fifty years earlier. Now we can see how…

— Derrick Bell

“Today, many whites oppose all social reform as "welfare programs for blacks." They ignore the fact that poor whites have employment, education,…

— Derrick Bell