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Race is not only real, but also illusory. Not only is it
common sense; it is also common nonsense. Not only does it establish our
identity; it also denies our identity.
Color is not human or a personal reality; it is political reality. —James Baldwin
Loyalty to petrified opinion never yet broke a chain or freed a human soul. — Mark Twain
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A Compendium of Facts on Race Chances that a Black Man is incarcerated or on probation: 3 in 5 The great majority of lynchings in the United States took place in the Southern and border states. According to social economist Gunnar Myrdal: “The Southern states account for nine-tenths of the lynchings." Percentage of Blacks holding executive positions in Fortune 500 Companies compared to Whites : .99% 66% of Blacks, and 45 % of Whites in America think that race relations will always be a problem Due to environmental factors, blacks are more than six times as likely than whites to be killed by tuberculosis Black women are four times as likely to be killed by pregnancy and childbirth The infant mortality rate of black children is more than twice as high as the one of white children.
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ew problems of contemporary cultural and political
life in the United States are more in need of understanding and
intervention than the way we think about, and act upon, race. Race in
America continues to be a social construct that is as destructive as it is
pervasive; yet it is a label which most Americans continue to take for
granted as if race were a static and permanent manifestation of
nature. 
ne obvious demonstration of the pernicious
influence of racial ideology is the reluctance with which people confront
race directly and uncritically accept racial stereotypes. The Institute
emphasizes the relational aspect of race; racial categories do not exist
in a vacuum nor apart from one another: black would be meaningless without
white as its counterpoint. In addition, contrary to the common pattern of
focusing attention upon blacks and black culture as the problem, the
Institute is founded upon the understanding that white privilege and the
"white as norm" view are the heart of the racial problem and thus in need
of re-examination.
