A Quote by Colson Whitehead

If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed. — © Colson Whitehead
If you write about race in 1850, you end up talking about race today because in many ways, so little has changed.
I talk about race a lot. It's been my work ever since I came out of acting school. But it's true that in a way talking about race is a taboo. Because so many of our debates about race have to do not with race but with what we are willing to see, what we will not see and what we don't want to see.
As a country, we are in a state of denial about issues of race and racism. And too many of our leaders have concluded that the way to remedy racism is to simply stop talking about race.
Regarding the idea of race, .. no agreement seems to exist about what race means. Race seems to embody a fact as simple and as obvious as the noonday sun, but if that is so, why the endless wrangling about the idea and the facts of race. What is a race? How can it be recognized? Who constitute the several races?.
Think about the change that occurred in the 1500m at Christchurch. The 1500m was usually a slow race and then a sprint [at the finish]. But in 1974 I changed that from the beginning to the end. And not many people have thought about that.
I like to explore different ideas of race, how the concept of race has evolved in the country. It's one thing I enjoy talking about, but I don't feel compelled to talk about it.
I've learned over the years that if you start thinking about the race, it stresses you out a little bit. I just try to relax and think about video games, what I'm gonna do after the race, what I'm gonna do just to chill. Stuff like that to relax a little before the race.
In my essay for 'The Good Immigrant,' I write about how concerns about race and immigration crept up on me a bit because of how I grew up and my background - I was quite fortunate, really; I never got the rough end of the stick with a lot of that kind of stuff.
My race was never an issue in my life until C and I got engaged, after that, no one could stop talking about it. I pray for the day when it becomes less remarkable because race does not define you.
We are not post-racial. And in many ways we don't even know how to have a conversation about being post-racial. Until we get out of that old-school way of thinking about race and opportunity and the ability to transcend some of the past of this country, then we're going to be stuck in the 20th-century conversation about race.
Life is not about winning the race. Life is about finishing the race, and how many people we can all help finish this race. How we can start being kinder to each other
In the past, I said I didn't want to speak on certain issues because the second I said one thing about race, then 'Tyron's playing the race card.' But if you really think about it, what is the race card? The race card is that the man held me down, I had unfair circumstances, and I wasn't able to be successful because I was held down.
It's the culture, not the blood. If you can go anywhere in the world and adopt these babies and put them into households that were already assimilated in America, those babies will grow up as American as any other baby with as much patriotism and love of country as any other baby. It's not about race. It's never been about race. In fact the struggles across this planet, we describe them as race, they're not race. They're culture based. It's a clash of culture, not the race. Sometimes that race is used as an identifier.
Today I felt like a part of something awesome, the human race. I know it can be ugly; it really is in so many ways. But today there was nothing ugly to see, just people trying to be better. And maybe that's the key. Not resolutions and forgotten promises, but instead a commitment to do this year a little better than the last. I'm feeling good about this one. I really am.
Do I care about what men say at the race track? No, not at all. I've always said I race for me, because I love racing. I don't race to prove a point about how well a woman can do against men on the track.
If I were an immigrant Latino not born in the US, I could not have written Searching for Whitopia: An Improbably Journey to the Heart of America book. And that is because many of the Whitopians would not have been comfortable talking about their views on immigration, talking about their views on taxes. And they wouldn't have spilled to me the new script on race and poverty as they did.
No matter how old I get, the race remains one of life's most rewarding experiences. My times become slower and slower, but the experience of the race is unchanged: each race a drama, each race a challenge, each race stretching me in one way or another, and each race telling me more about myself and others.
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