Christopher Columbus, And Other Quotes You Don’t Learn In School

I didn’t learn of the existence of these quotes until after I had come to college, and even then, I had to work really hard to find this information.

“The Indians are so naive and so free with their possessions that no one who has not witnessed them would believe it. When you ask for something they have, they never say no. To the contrary, they offer to share with anyone.

They would make fine servants…with fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

—Christopher Columbus

“I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in endowments of both body and mind”

—Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1785, slaveowner.

“I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races, that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality.

And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.”

—Abraham Lincoln, 1858

“In America, history is something that we want to look back on and be proud of, and if it’s not, we don’t want to hear it. We erase it”

“To skip over it and water it down is to do a huge disservice to ourselves.”

“How often do we choose not to know, & actively find ways to quiet the voices of those who are trying to tell us?”

–Naomi Tutu

Ubuntu,

From Aspiring Humanitarian, Relando Thompkins-Jones, MSW, LLMSW

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