A Quote by Rachel House
I think we are progressing with race relations but assumptions hold us back.
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Intersectionality has made an important contribution to social and political analysis, asking all of us to think about what assumptions of race and class we make when we speak about "women" or what assumptions of gender and race we make when we speak about "class." It allows us to unpack those categories and see the various kinds of social formations and power relations that constitute those categories.
We have many companies, I say pouring back into America. I think that's going to have a huge, positive impact on race relations. You know why? It's jobs. What people want now, they want jobs. They want great jobs with good pay. And when they have that, you watch how race relations will be.
I think various places in this country are ready to explode. I think [race relations] are very tense. I think that [Barack] Obama has divided the country as far as race relations are concerned, and I think that you have certain sections, and you have lots of different locations within this country that potentially are powder kegs.
People think edges are bad, but they are really there to keep up from falling to pieces. They don't hold us back, they hold us in. They hold us together.
If others tell us something we make assumptions, and if they don't tell us something we make assumptions to fulfill our need to know and to replace the need to communicate. Even if we hear something and we don't understand we make assumptions about what it means and then believe the assumptions. We make all sorts of assumptions because we don't have the courage to ask questions.
Dialogue is a space where we may see the assumptions which lay beneath the surface of our thoughts, assumptions which drive us, assumptions around which we build organizations, create economies, form nations and religions. These assumptions become habitual, mental habits that drive us, confuse us and prevent our responding intelligently to the challenges we face every day.
President Obama, when he was elected, he could have been a unifying figure. He could have chosen to be a leader on race relations and bring us together. And he hasn't done that, he's made decisions that I think have inflamed racial tensions that have divided us rather than bringing us together.
All of us make assumptions about what somebody's potential is, because we all think of why somebody can or can't do something. We make terrible assumptions.
We are all constantly transmitting information to the people around us, and the messages we choose to communicate either create success or hold us all hold back.
Here's the thing. When we talk about race relations in America or racial progress, it's all nonsense. There are no race relations. White people were crazy. Now they're not as crazy. To say that black people have made progress would be to say they deserve what happened to them before.
The country has come a long way in race relations, but the pendulum swings so far back. Everyone wants to be so sensitive.
We definitely experience racism in England and different levels of oppression as well. Anywhere affected by colonialism there's certain kinds of race relations and class relations going on.
Once it was necessary that the people should multiply and be fruitful if the race was to survive. But now to preserve the race it is necessary that people hold back the power of propagation.
Scripture tells us to "run with endurance the race that is set before us." As we do, may God hold close those who’ve been taken from us too soon.
Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don't think it's given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I'm going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.
There are three musts that hold us back: "I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy." And I sometimes think that as long as we keep the second must, which is socially learned, then some screwballs 100 years from now will manufacture atomic bombs in their bathtub and maybe annihilate the whole human race because they demand that the rest of the world must agree with their dogmas. When we don't agree, they may zap us.
