Q. What is the best thing to do when people you meet casually — say a taxicab driver or an office receptionist — make violently prejudiced (and untrue) remarks about a minority race? Usually I just keep my mouth shut. But is this really right? It seems to me that perhaps in keeping silent I am actually condoning these vicious remarks.
A. I rather think the time has come when keeping silent, if other people say things of which you cannot approve, is an escape from doing something disagreeable. Everyone has a right to his own opinion and to state it, therefore I do not think one should be heated or angry over what other people say; but if silence seems to give approval, then remaining silent is cowardly. I think one should say, “I have evidently had different experiences from what you have had, and I find on the whole that thus and so seems true.” It may lead to an argument and it may require restraint and patience on both sides, but it will often clear up misconceptions and show that there are two points of view, and that it is possible to discuss questions on a reasonable basis even when feelings are involved as well as facts.
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) First Lady of the US (1933–1945), politician, diplomat, activist
Column (1944-09), “If You Ask Me,” Ladies’ Home Journal, Vol. 61
(Source)
Quotations about:
antisemitism
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There are men among us who use “patriotism” as a club for attacking other Americans. What can we say for the self-styled patriot who thinks that a Negro, a Jew, a Catholic, or a Japanese-American is less an American than he? That betrays the deepest article of our faith, the belief in individual liberty and equality which has always been the heart and soul of the American idea.
Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) American diplomat, statesman
Speech (1952-08-27), “The Nature of Patriotism,” American Legion Convention, Madison Square Garden, New York City
(Source)
What vitiates nearly all that is written about antisemitism is the assumption in the writer’s mind that he himself is immune to it. “Since I know that antisemitism is irrational,” he argues, “it follows that I do not share it.” He thus fails to start his investigation in the one place where he could get hold of some reliable evidence — that is, in his own mind.
George Orwell (1903-1950) English journalist, essayist, writer [pseud. of Eric Arthur Blair]
Essay (1945-04), “Antisemitism in Britain,” Contemporary Jewish Record
(Source)
Written February 1945.
