Whites

“ They astonish you with strokes of the most sublime oratory; such as prove their reason and sentiment strong, their imagination glowing and elevated. But never yet could I find that a black had uttered a thought above the level of plain narration; never seen even an elementary trait of painting or sculpture. In music they are more generally gifted than the whites with accurate ears for tune and time, and they have been found capable of imagining a small catch. ”

“ That their practice evinces more and more a departure from them, under the debasing influences of a proximity to the whites, is a melancholy truth, which no one will admit with so much sorrow as those who lived among them, and esteemed them, before this signal change had taken place. ”

“ When we come particularly to examine the different people of which these races are composed, we shall perceive as many varieties among the blacks as the whites; and all the shades from brown to black, as we have already remarked from brown to fair in the white races. ”

“ Very great subjects can only be touched upon, not treated, here. Why is it that the native whites of the North are multiplying so much more slowly, not only than the colored, but even than the Southern whites? ”

“ Yet the white race, whether the dark-whites, such as Phœnicians or Hebrews, Greeks or Romans, or the fair-whites, such as Scandinavians and Teutons, appear in history as followers and disciples of the Egyptians and Babylonians who taught the world writing, mathematics, philosophy. ”

“ White individuals who have part and lot in the various Colonies, with their hearts and feelings swayed by affections natural to their birth and earliest associations; and Whites who have come to think the land of their adoption as dear to themselves as the land of their birth, entertain no such dread of [179] their fellow-citizens of any other section, whom they estimate according to intelligence and probity, and not according to any accident of exterior physique. ”

“ 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 the endowments both of body and mind. ”

“ The Southern whites are in many respects a great people. Looked at from a certain point of view, they are picturesque. If one will put oneself in a romantic frame of mind, one can admire their notions of chivalry and bravery and justice. ”

“ Here are a few white men in the wilds of Africa, surrounded by the uncivilized children of the desert. They have money and valuable instruments, a large variety of gewgaws that possessed the power of charming the fancy of the average savage; and therefore the whites would have been a tempting prey to the blacks. ”

“ This preference for the white to the coloured man was also very conspicuous during the French occupation; and all things considered, it is not to be wondered at, as the whites make much better husbands. ”

“ Disfranchise the Negro, said the South, and the race problem is solved; there is no race problem save the menace of an ignorant and venal vote;—relieve us from this and the lion and the lamb will lie down together;—the Negro will go peacefully and contentedly to work and the whites will wax just and rich. ”

“ In the language of a writer of expanded views and truly noble sentiments, 'the blacks must be regarded as the real authors of most of the arts and sciences which give the whites at present the advantage over them. ”

“ Negro—with firmness and with kindness—and the Negroes are liked below the Mason and Dixon line so so long as they keep to their proper relation to the Whites, but in the North the blocks of Negroes in the large cities, migrating from the South, have introduced new complications, which are certain to produce trouble in the future, especially if Communist propaganda makes headway among them. ”

“ The Whites always mean well when they take human fish out of the ocean and try to make them dry and warm and happy and comfortable in a chicken coop; but the kindest-hearted white man can always be depended on to prove himself inadequate when he deals with savages. ”

“ Taking the country over, the Whites who have married Indians have not been of a high class. But the total number of Indians in the United States is so small that their future is probably that of being absorbed in the White race through miscegenation, unless it be for a few tribes cultivating a racial purity of their own and, with favorable economic conditions, perpetuating themselves for a long time to come. ”

“ At other seasons there is a pale glare produced by the mist clouds which spread themselves over the lower firmament. [Pg 292] Even the faces of the people are white; the men are white when not painted blue, the women are whiter, and the children are whitest: these indeed often have white hair. ”

“ About a mile farther than this river we went when the Land became again as barren as possible, the rocks every where projecting into the sea, so we resolvd to return. Soon after this resolution one of the natives made us an offer of refreshment which we accepted. He was remarkable for being much the whitest man we had seen. ”

“ Of several colours, all equally white, that will look whitest which is against the darkest background. And black will look intensest against the whitest background.
And red will look most vivid against the yellowest background; and the same is the case with all colours when surrounded by their strongest contrasts. ”

“ ⁠The Raven once in Snowy Plumes was drest,
White as the whitest Dove's unsully'd Breast,
Fair as the Guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the Swan; a large and lovely Fowl;
His Tongue, his prating Tongue had changed him quite
To sooty Blackness from the purest White. ”

“ A whiteness hovers o'er my nights.
White dews, white crescent moons, white dawns,
White flickering feet, white-gleaming hands,
White limbs that dream on twilight lawns,
White limbs that dance on shimmering sands. ”

“ Alas! if color could disgrace a people, how deep in the nethermost regions of shame, would that color be, which is called white in the United States; frequently with such utter recklessness of truth. White! ”

“ HAVE you ever seen a cotton-field white with the harvest,—its golden fleece hovering above the black earth like a silvery cloud edged with dark green, its bold white signals waving like the foam of billows from Carolina to Texas across that Black and human Sea? ”

“ Although he had travelled far, yet was his face white; white like those hermits that dwell apart in caves; white was he as the live white of the growing lily, as the pallor of the moon in daylight; and the men and women of the city marvelled, for they were a dark people that worked in the furrows of the earth and lived daily in the sun. ”

“ The Muslims also glory in white turbans; but I should be tedious, were I to repeat all that may be said in praise of white; little and enough is better than too much. So now I will begin with thy dispraise, O black, O colour of ink and blacksmith’s dust, thou whose face is like the crow that brings about lovers’ parting! Verily, the poet saith in praise of white and dispraise of black:
Seest not that for their milky hue white pearls in price excel And charcoal for a groat a load the folk do buy and sell? ”

“ And if we ask what is ‘white’ we can only say, ‘that it is a term used to designate the absence of color’—that is all, and no sign whatever of ‘race integrity.’ We have already indicated that science and investigation point to the fact that primitive man was not white. ”

“ The whole race will be stript of all its noble qualities, and swallowed up in a race, composed of black and white, and cursing the very earth they tread. In the south, the white race will in time be annihilated. ”

“ Most of those that we see are white; some are black. In the western part of our country there are a good many red men, and in some parts yellow men, or Chinese, are found. In other parts of the world we find men of one more color still, the brown. ”

“ In ceremonial addresses, as at the green corn dance and ball play, the people figuratively partake of white food and after the dance or the game return along the white trail to their white houses. In love charms the man, in order to induce the woman to cast her lot with his, boasts “I am a white man,” implying that all is happiness where he is. White beads have the same meaning in the bead conjuring and white was the color of the stone pipe anciently used in ratifying peace treaties. ”

“ Thus, then, that European whiteness of which our species is so proud is no other than a real defect, a sort of deformity which ought to be resigned in these remote climes to the black colour of charcoal, to the sombre red of ochre, or fuller's earth. ”

“ Its white walls and towering steeple dominate the scene. White, too, are the houses that gleam from behind the verdure of unbroken lawns and shrubbery—all but one, the time-stained brick of which glows blood-red against the black green of clinging ivy. ”

“ My darling boy, those little stars,
⁠Upon a field of white,
Are emblems of our glorious boys
⁠Enrolling for the right.
The border, as you see, is red,
⁠Which represents their blood;
The stars are blue, the heavenly hue;
⁠The white is always good. ”

“ In such a white world, the entrance of a black man would be hailed with joy by the inhabitants. Anybody or anything would be welcome that would break the oppressive and tormenting monotony of the all-prevailing white. ”

“ And here we found that while all races are equally gifted in this respect, yet its elementary conditions are not always the same in different branches of the Adamic tree. Taking the extremes in color as the representatives of a fair contrast in other respects, we have confined our investigations to the white and black races,—and with a view to our own profit, and to being fully comprehended by the reader,—these races as they exist on our own shores. ”

“ It says 'the negro.' A negro is black; I am white, and not black."
"Black as ink, my lad," returned the lawyer, shaking his head. "'One touch of nature makes the whole world kin,' says the poet. Somewhere, sometime, you had a black ancestor. One drop of black blood makes the whole man black." ”

“ And down the marble steps from the first to the second terrace, down the steps to the garden, past the Tritenesses' fountain, Thessa came. Even in the shadows her hair shone more golden than the aureole of any of the sun-gilded statues, her fluttering robe shone more pearly, more silvery than the halo about any one of the statues of marble, her teeth were whiter than the whitest of the dewy flowers, her lips redder than the reddest blooms, her eyes bluer than the bluest blossoms, her smile brighter than the sun itself. ”

“ At least five distinct races are, as we know, universally recognized by ethnographers, — namely, the yellow or Asiatic race, the brown or Malays, the copper-colored or American-Indian, the negro or African, and,the Caucasian or white race. ”

“ The fact of most tremendous import is that the white race in trying to settle its own quarrels has called in black, brown and yellow to do its fighting for it, with the result that black, brown and yellow will learn thereby how to fight for themselves, even against those whom they were called in to assist. ”

“ Sometimes the White shows in spurts of fierce, childish pride—which is Pride of Race run crooked—and sometimes the Black in still fiercer abasement and humility, half heathenish customs and strange, unaccountable impulses to crime. ”

“ It is an undeserved compliment to the negro and an unjust insult to the white to claim that a man having an equal amount of both strains is more black than white, but if the white strain is Anglo-Saxon or Scandinavian, then he is both white and black, and all of each, for they will mix no more than oil and water. ”

“ And I shall insert an Essay, as well Speculative as Historical, of the Nature of Whiteness and Blackness, that you may have a Specimen of the History of Colours, I have sometimes had thoughts of; and if you dislike not the Method I have made use of, I hope, you, and some of the Virtuosi, your friends, may be thereby invited to go thorow with Red, Blew, Yellow, and the rest of the particular Colours, as I have done with White and Black, but with farr more sagacity and success. ”

“ We do also firmly declare, That it is our resolution, as long as we live, to call black, black; and white, white. And we shall upon all occasions oppose such persons, that, upon any day of the year, shall call black white, or white black, with the utmost peril of our lives and fortunes. ”

“ Being permitted to play with their children, I have been in their presence while they were conducting their business, and the amount of wisdom the white men know is wonderful. Great thoughts—too great for me to understand—dropped from their mouths—from one to another—just as those pearls which thou dost play with are passed from thy right hand to thy left. ”

“ That Soldiers and Seamen, who must march and labour in the Sun, should, in the East or West Indies have an Uniform of white? That Summer Hats, for Men or Women, should be white, as repelling that Heat which gives Headaches to many, and to some the fatal Stroke that the French call the Coup de Soleil? ”

“ If there is a measurable difference between the inherent brain power of the white race and the black, it is practically certain that there are also measurable differences between the white and the red. ”

“ But alas, alas, the white man's ax has been there! The tree that my good spirit had planted for me, where once the pretty brown thrush daily sat with her musical voice, is cut down by the ruthless hands of the white man. ”