We know that we're not supposed to be racially biased, and we don't want to think of ourselves as racially biased, so we tell ourselves a different story.
Randall KennedyRead
All white people in the United States have benefited from a white supremacy. But does that mean that a white person should be viewed badly because they turn against a white supremacist policy? Just because you've benefited from something shouldn't disable you from repudiating it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote discusses the moral responsibility of individuals to reject oppressive systems, even if they have personally benefited from them.
Randall Kennedy's quote emphasizes that just because individuals from a dominant group, such as white people in the United States, have gained advantages from systemic racism, it does not imply that they should be condemned for opposing those oppressive structures. The essence lies in recognizing one's privilege and the importance of actively rejecting harmful policies and ideologies, regardless of personal gain, highlighting the potential for moral growth and social responsibility.
Themes
RacismPrivilegeResponsibilityOpposeWhite Supremacy
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a lecture about social justice and the role of privilege in systemic oppression.
More from Randall Kennedy
All quotes βIn elite, primarily white institutions, there are many blacks who have white wives. So much so that sometimes there is almost the assumption that I would be married to a white woman.
Randall KennedyRead
Similar quotes
The ultimate goal of theology isn't knowledge, but worship. If our learning and knowledge of God do not lead to the joyful praise of God, we have failed. We learn only that we might laud, which is to say that theology without doxology is idolatry. The only theology worth studying is a theology that can be sung!
Sam StormsRead
Indeed, when religious people quarrel about religion, or hungry people quarrel about victuals, it looks as if they had not much of either among them.
Benjamin FranklinRead
The reflection, the verisimilitude, of life that shines in the fleshly cells from the soul source is the only cause of man's attachment to his body; obviously he would not pay solicitous homage to a clod of clay. A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own.
Paramahansa YoganandaRead
Darwin's greatest achievement was to show that the appearance of purpose, planning, teleology (design), and intentionality in the origin and development of human and animal species was entirely an illusion. The illusion could be explained by evolutionary processes that contained no such purpose at all. But the spread of ideas through imitation required the whole apparatus of human consciousness and intentionality
John SearleRead
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain. One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Albert CamusRead
We believe in separation of church and state, that there should be no unwarranted influence on the church or religion by the state, and vice versa.
Jimmy CarterRead