White Like Me Quotes 

Stubborn:​ “Our unwillingness to hold our people and ourselves to 

a higher moral standard-a standard in place since the time of 
Moses, for it was he to whom God supposedly gave those 
commandments to about stealing a killing-brings shame to us 
today.” (14) 
 
Able: “​ The ability to come to America in the first place, the ability 
to procure land once here, and the ability to own other human 
beings while knowing that you would never be owned yourself, all 
depended on European ancestry.” (21) 
 
Liable:​ “Those who reap the benefits of past actions-and the 
privileged that have come from whiteness are certainly among 
those- have an obligation to take responsibility for our use of 
benefits.” (25) 
 
Unaware: “​ Whites tell black folks, as we often do, that they should 
“just be Americans” and “drop the whole hyphen thing,” we’re 
forgetting that it’s hard to just be an American when you’ve rarely 
been treated like a full and equal member of the family.” (29) 
 
Selfish:​ “Integration would be of limited success because whites 
had been ill-prepared to open up the gates of access and 
opportunity wide enough for any but a few to squeeze through.” 
(32) 
 
Opportunity:​ “To be white at that school, as in many others, was to 
have a whole world of extracurricular opportunity opened to 
oneself- a world where if you were a mediocre student (as I was), 
you could still find a niche, an outlet for your talents, passions and 
interests.” (41) 
 
Subconscious:​ “I was still attending a school system that was 
giving the message every day that blacks were inferior” (49) 
 
Contradictory:​ “We use the word ‘civilization’ to mean ‘materially 
wealthy’ and technologically advanced, even though material 
wealth and technology are often used for uncivilized, unethical 
ends.” (61) 
 
Empowering:​ “How many would have felt empowered enough to 
stand up to the unequal discipline being meted out to students of 
color, relative to whites, even when rates of rule infractions were 
indistinguishable between the various racial groups?” (63) 
 
Ignoring differences/colorblind:​ “To treat everyone the same is to 
miss the fact that children of color have all the same challenges 
white kids do, and then that one extra thing to deal with: racism. 
But if you’ve told yourself you are not to see race, you’ll be unlikely 
to notice discrimination based on race, let alone how to respond 
to it.” (67) 
 
Elitist: ​“The ideas that shape out world will continue to be those of 
the elite, no matter how destructive these ideas have proven to be 
for the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants.” (72) 
 
Dangerous:​ “Unless we begin to address the way that privilege 
can set up those who have it for a fall- can vest them with an 
unrealistic set of expectations- we’ll be creating more addicts, 
more people who turn to self-injury, suicide, eating disorders, or 
other forms of self-negation, all because they failed to live up to 
some type of idealized type they’d been told was their to achieve.” 
(86) 
 
Excluding:​ “The warnings were all regarding black and poor 
neighborhoods, it was highly racialized and selective in a way that 
prioritized the well-being of whites to the exclusion of persons of 
color.” (95) 
 
Competence assumed:​ “I could rest assured that my failures 
would be my own and would never be attributed to racial 
incompetence.” (99) 
 
Bold:​ “There’s something about being white that allows and 
encourages one to take a lot of risks, knowing that nine times out 
of ten everything will workout.” (101) 
 
Minimizing:​ “Not only are the contributions of people of color to 
this nation’s history minimized in favor of a narrative that 
prioritizes the things done by rich while men, but those whites 
who resisted and joined with black and brown folks to forge a 
better way are similarly ignored.” (111) 
 
Missteps:​ “The lesson I would learn about how even in our 
resistance to racist structures we can reinforce racism and even 
collaborate with the very forces we claim to be opposing.” (120) 
 
Oblivious: ​“Only by being called out, as I was, can we learn this in 
most cases. Only by being exposed to our flaws, forced to deal 
with them and learn from them, can we move forward and 
strengthen our resistance in the future.” (124) 
 
Supremacy: ​“It was a white race, he [David Duke] insisted, that 
needed him to stand up for it, to repel the attack from ‘reverse 
discrimination,’ busing in schools, ‘parasitic’ welfare recipients, 
immigration, and any other evil under the sun onto which he 
could cast a brown face.” (131) 
 
Profiling: “​ Darryl had the misfortune of walking while black, on an 
evening when apparently someone else, also black, had mugged 
some white folks.” (142) 
 
Injustice:​ ​“For whites, innocence was presumed until proven 
otherwise, while for blacks, the presumption of guilt was the 
default position.” (144) 
 
Redeemable: ​“What I learned was the fundamental redeemability 
of even the most distorted human soul.” (154) 
 
Comparing: “​ Psychological wage of whiteness,’ which allowed 
struggling white folks to accept their miserable lot in life, so long 
as they were doing better than blacks.” (166) 
 
Security: “​ I was relatively protected in that space, despite the 
generally higher crime rates that existed in the communities 
where public housing was to be found.” (174) 
 
Relative: “​ We like the fact that we don’t have to constantly 
overcome negative stereotypes about intelligence, morality, 
honesty, or work ethic , the way people of color so often do.” (179) 
 
Shallow:​ “Inequality and privilege were the only real components 
of whiteness.” (179) 
 
Individuality: ​“White can take it for granted that we’ll likely be 
viewed as individuals, representing nothing greater than our 
solitary selves.” (186) 
 
Unperceptive:​ “If we can impose enough set-awareness into the 
minds of those who engage in racist behavior, we make it harder 
for such persons to blindly act on it.” (197) 
 
Inconsistent:​ “That no similar calls for racial profiling of white had 
been issued after Tim McVeigh’s crime... and arsonists over the 
years (all of whom had been white and ostensibly Christian), went 
largely unmentioned.” (210) 
 
Disillusioned: “​ Only middle class and above white folks have had 
to luxury of believing in the system and being amazed when it 
doesn’t seem to work out as they expected.” (227) 
 
Conditioned:​ “We sometimes operate from a place of long-term 
conditioning, which, having penetrated our subconscious, waits 
for just the right moment to be triggered, and invariably manages 
to find it.” (214) 
 
Misguided:​ “Perhaps if whites there hadn’t been so busy 
scapegoating black and brown folks for their misfortunes, they 
might have extended their hand to blacks in the Lower Ninth 
Ward, and together they could have marched on the Corps of 
Engineers,” (233) 
 
Unequal: “​ A black man was forced to apologize to white people for 
a simple comment, while whites have still never had to apologize 
for the centuries-long crimes of slavery, segregation, and white 
institutional racism.” (239) 
 
Tradition: ​“There is nothing about the world that suggests 
tradition must be oppressive, or that it must necessarily serve to 
uphold the status quo.” (243) 
 
Work to remedy: ​“Likewise, we can say we believe in diversity and 
equity, and value multiculturalism...they will see the inconsistency, 
translate it as hypocrisy, and conclude that we, as parents are lying 
to them when it comes to that which we value.” (254) 
 
Still hope:​ “By focusing on resistance and allyship, both the fear 
and the guilt that comes with the victimization and oppression 
lens can be largely avoided.” (265) 
 
Resistance: “​ That if the spirit of resistance is nurtured and 
cultivated, children can become teens who become adults who 
become and remain allies in the struggle against resistance.” (266) 
 
Amendable:​ “Maybe our redemption comes from the struggle 
itself. Maybe it is in the effort, the striving for equality and freedom, 
that we become human.” (269)