The one thing that the racist can never manage is anything like discrimination: he is indiscriminate by definition.
Interpretation
Racism is inherently unsophisticated and lacks discernment in judging individuals.
In this quote, Christopher Hitchens argues that racism, by its nature, fails to allow for nuanced understanding or fair evaluation of individuals, as racists indiscriminately generalize based on race rather than recognizing the complexities of personal identity. The implication is that true discrimination requires discernment and an ability to see beyond superficial categories, which racists fundamentally lack.
In practice
In a speech about social justice, one might quote this to highlight the flaws in racist thinking.
In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.
What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Never ask while you are doing it if what you are doing is fun. Don't introduce even your most reliably witty acquaintance as someone who will set the table on a roar.
[E]xceptional claims demand exceptional evidence.
The worst days are when you feel foggy in the head - chemo-brain they call it. It's awful because you feel boring. As well as bored. And stupid. And resigned.
Let me tell you something: for hundreds of thousands of years, this kind of discussion would have been impossible to have, or those like us would have been having it at the risk of our lives. Religion now comes to us in this smiley-face, ingratiating way β because itβs had to give so much more ground and because we know so much more. But youβve got no right to forget the way it behaved when it was strong, and when it really did believe that it had God on its side.
Tolerance and freedom of thought are the veritable antidotes to religious fanaticism.
The mystic cannot wholly do without symbol and image, inadequate to his vision though they must always be: for his experience must be expressed if it is to be communicated, and its actuality is inexpressible except in some hint or parallel which will stimulate the dormant intuition of the reader.
When men abandon reason, physical force becomes their only means of dealing with one another and of settling disagreements.
IMAGINATION, n. A warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.
The most violent appetites in all creatures are lust and hunger; the first is a perpetual call upon them to propagate their kind, the latter to preserve themselves.
The past is gone, the future is not yet here, and if we do not go back to ourselves in the present moment, we cannot be in touch with life.
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