"Climbing is not inherently racist, however, conventional climbing from the beginning—like big wall climbing at Yosemite and stuff like that—it was born during a system of racism, so, therefore, it’s impacted by it, right? Black people were banned from national parks up until I think it was like the mid-fifties or something like that. That’s already a barrier that’s already been set and that has already impacted who is allowed to control the narrative within this certain sport, and who continues on with it. So, it’s like, no wonder black people haven’t really been getting into it—because we weren’t even allowed to get into it in the first place. … And frankly, when a lot of these big wall accomplishments were going on, black folks were trying to get the right to vote. They weren’t worried about hammering in pitons into cracks and stuff like that—they were trying to just have basic rights. So, who gets to control that narrative from the beginning really has an impact on how things are carried out today. You see it in tech, you see it in climbing—politics. It’s everywhere. ...Because the entire time I’m watching Valley Uprising and I’m like 'Oh, this is cool. This is neat—but, come on, man. Without your heightened status within this country, it wouldn’t have been a possibility whatsoever. You know, you had the opportunity to do this because of your legal status within the country at the time.'" — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"In the US, overt racism is pretty obvious to most people. So, it’s pretty easy to stand up for and defend others—right? But covert racism is just that—it’s covert, concealed, stealthy. Hidden within the fabric of our society and even hidden within the fabric of ourselves. And then, we rationalize it." — Kathy Karlo For the Love of Climbing, Episode 18, "Life Through a Sieve"
"And in a lot of areas, if you’re wanting to get into climbing, you have to go outside of your neighborhood—which can already have its own sort of loaded historical trauma, depending on the neighborhood and stuff like that. You’re going into a space where, primarily, it’s a lot of white people handling ropes. Emily Taylor has always highlighted this: there’s a lot of loaded historical trauma with that imagery." — Brandon Belcher For the Love of Climbing, Episode 17, "What We Know"
"I don’t hate white people; I hate the system of white supremacy that gives them asymmetrical power and unmerited privilege. I don’t hate cops; I hate the pattern of police brutality that systematically harasses and kills black people and other people of color with impunity. I don’t hate soldiers; I hate the horror of war that terrorizes the most politically and economically vulnerable among us. I don’t hate rich people; I hate the system of capitalism that creates an elite one percent at the expense of the rest of us. It is precisely because of my love for humanity that I get enraged at systems that prevent people from flourishing and being free. It’s frustrating to see my righteous anger at unjust systems interpreted as hatred for individuals, but it’s more frustrating to see the oppressed suffer while those maladjusted to injustice remain silent. I won’t be silent. Silence is violence." — Nyle Fort
"And, that’s called privilege. Knowing that a life of security, minivans, buying homes, and retirement is firmly within your grasp is privilege. Golf as a backup plan is privilege. What we think of as adventure, in the conventional sense, is privilege. People like myself who are born into privilege sleep under the stars because they don’t know what it’s like to be homeless and climb mountains because they don’t know what it’s like to be scared some caprice of nature—like a bullet with your name on it from an officer’s gun—might take your life. Adventure, in short, is wanting to experience something you’ve never experienced before. The particular kind of adventure someone seeks out is an easy way to know what experiences they have and haven’t had." — Chris Kalman Email Newsletter
"I know this must feel so strange, but ordinary is just what you’re used to. This may not be ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. This will become ordinary. (Aunt Lydia)" — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"Better never means better for everyone, he says. It always means worse, for some." — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn’t the same as ignorance, you have to work at it." — Margaret Atwood The Handmaid's Tale
"Black people are apparently responsible for calming the fears of violent cops in the way women are supposedly responsible for calming the sexual desires of male rapists. If we don’t, then we are blamed for our own assaults, our own deaths." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Do-nothing climate policy is racist policy, since the predominantly non-White global south is being victimized by climate change more than the Whiter global north, even as the Whiter global north is contributing more to its acceleration." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Assimilationists believe in the post-racial myth that talking about race constitutes racism, or that if we stop identifying by race, then racism will miraculously go away. They fail to realize that if we stop using racial categories, then we will not be able to identify racial inequity. If we cannot identify racial inequity, then we will not be able to identify racist policies. If we cannot identify racist policies, then we cannot challenge racist policies. If we cannot challenge racist policies, then racist power’s final solution will be achieved: a world of inequity none of us can see, let alone resist. Terminating racial categories is potentially the last, not the first, step in the antiracist struggle." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"The history of the racialized world is a three-way fight between assimilationists, segregationists, and antiracists. Antiracist ideas are based in the truth that racial groups are equals in all the ways they are different, assimilationist ideas are rooted in the notion that certain racial groups are culturally or behaviorally inferior, and segregationist ideas spring from a belief in genetic racial distinction and fixed hierarchy." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"We have all been programmed to respond to the human differences between us with fear and loathing and to handle that difference in one of three ways: ignore it, and if that is not possible, copy it if we think it is dominant, or destroy it if we think it is subordinate. But we have no patterns for relating across our human differences as equals." — Audre Lorde "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference"
"We are surrounded by racial inequity, as visible as the law, as hidden as our private thoughts." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism. The conjoined twins are two sides of the same destructive body." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"What if we realized the best way to ensure an effective educational system is not by standardizing our curricula and tests but by standardizing the opportunities available to all students? In other words, the racial problem is the opportunity gap, as antiracist reformers call it, not the achievement gap." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair." — President Lyndon B. Johnson 1965 Howard University Commencement Address
"'Racist policy' says exactly what the problem is and where the problem is. 'Institutional racism' and 'structural racism' and 'systemic racism” are redundant. Racism itself is institutional, structural, and systemic. ... Covering up the specific policies and policymakers prevents us from identifying and replacing the specific policies and policymakers. We become unconscious to racist policymakers and policies as we lash out angrily at the abstract bogeyman of 'the system.'" — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"Changing minds is not a movement. Critiquing racism is not activism. Changing minds is not activism. An activist produces power and policy change, not mental change." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
"I had been taught that racist ideas cause racist policies. That ignorance and hate cause racist ideas. That the root problem of racism is ignorance and hate. But that gets the chain of events exactly wrong. The root problem has always been the self-interest of racist power. Powerful economic, political, and cultural self-interest has been behind racist policies. Powerful and brilliant intellectuals then produced racist ideas to justify the racist policies of their era, to redirect the blame for their era’s racial inequities away from those policies and onto people." — Ibram Kendi How to Be an Antiracist
