Keep in mind, when two enemies are talking, they're not fighting, they're talking. They might be yelling and screaming, but at least they're talking. It's when the talking ceases that the ground becomes fertile for violence.
Daryl Davis
At the end, ignorance is the source of biases. If we cure that, there's nothing to fear and hate.
I did not vote for Donald Trump and I do not support him but I believe that Trump is the best thing to happen to this country in a long time. He's bringing out the country's ugliness. There's no turning a blind eye anymore.
We spend too much time talking about each other, at each other, past each other, and not enough time talking with each other.
If you spend five minutes with your worst enemy - it doesn't have to be about race, it could be about anything... you will find that you both have something in common. As you build upon those commonalities, you're forming a relationship and as you build about that relationship, you're forming a friendship.
A stupid person is someone who has the facts, who has the proper information, and still makes the wrong decision.
There's a difference between being ignorant and being stupid... For me, an ignorant person is someone who makes the wrong decision or a bad choice because he or she does not have the proper facts. If you give that person the facts and the proper information you have alleviated that ignorance, and they make the right decision.
You're not going to beat the meanness out of a mean dog. You start beating a mean dog, it's gonna become more mean. You start beating racists, they're gonna become more racist.
You cannot hate the hate out of a person. You cannot beat the hate out of a person. But you can love it out of a person.
I never set out to convert anyone in the Klan. I just set out to get an answer to my question: 'How can you hate me when you don't even know me.'
The most important thing I learned is that when you are actively learning about someone else you are passively teaching them about yourself.
There are a lot of well meaning white liberals. And a lot of well meaning black liberals. But you know what? When all they do is sit around and preach to the choir it does absolutely no good. If you're not a racist it doesn't do any good for me to meet with you and sit around and talk about how bad racism is.
People learn racism through dialogue. Somebody tells them about it. So if you can learn it through dialogue, you can also unlearn it through dialogue.
When you seek to destroy somebody, all you do is empower them, because they feel like, 'you see? They don't want us to have our rights to feel the way we want to feel.' And they get more and more emboldened and more and more empowered.
There are many controversial topics out there - abortion, nuclear weapons, the 2nd Amendment, guns, whatever, the war in Iraq. You're going to be on one side, somebody's going to be on the other side. Invite those people to the table. Sit down and talk.
I don't believe that Donald Trump is a racist, per se. But some of the things that he does, some of the rhetoric that he uses, attracts racists and that sets the tone. And of course, you are judged by the company you keep.
Venues had segregated seating - but when Chuck Berry fused together blues, boogie-woogie and country music, it caused people not to be able to sit still. They bounced up out of their seats, knocking over ropes, dancing together.
Our society can only become one of two things, it can be become what we let it become or it can become what we make it, and I choose the latter.
I'd had a racist experience as a child at age 10, where people had thrown rocks at me and bottles. I didn't understand. And all it was, was because of the color of my skin, nothing I had done, nothing I had said.
I was no stranger to racism. Having grown up a black person in the '60s and '70s, I knew that prejudice was common.
He spoke nine languages. You know some people can just pick up an instrument and play. My father was like that with languages.
In my band, I'm the band leader. As a band leader, our job is to bring harmony to the voices we have on stage.
I came into music kind of late in life - until I was 17 I wanted to be a spy, wanted to be James Bond, so I had to learn rather quickly and practice longer than most people did to play catch up.
Believe it or not, the best way to put somebody at ease or bring them to a level of trust is to know as much if not more about them than they know about themselves or the organization to which they belong.
I wanted to visit India because I have always wanted to explore the country. More than that, I have always found the caste system in India identical to the racism in the United States.
If you don't keep hatred in check it will breed destruction.
Some black people who have not heard me interviewed or read my book jump to conclusions and prejudge me... I've been called Uncle Tom. I've been called an Oreo.
Racism is a cancer. You cannot ignore it and it'll go away. If you ignore cancer, it simply metastasizes and consumes the whole body.
Invite your enemies to sit down and join you. One small thing you say might give them food for though, and you will learn.
I didn't vote for Trump, but I do believe his coming to power has done its own bit of good. People are coming out to protest against issues they so far didn't talk about - sexual abuse, gun control, racism - because a bunch of crazies are out propagating them.
What we do too much of is, we talk about each other, we talk at each other, or we talk past each other. I have found that talking with each other is much more effective.
I knew as much about the Klan, if not more than many of the Klan people that I interviewed. When they see that you know about their organization, their belief system, they respect you.
There's no more denying it, or saying we live in a post-racist society. All you have to do is turn on the TV and see all these hate crimes.
My parents were U.S. Foreign Service, so I spent a lot of time you know, overseas in various countries around the world, you know, I was an American Embassy brat and today, as a professional musician, I travel all over this country and around the world.
My father was the first black Secret Service agent. He wanted to get into the FBI but J. Edgar Hoover, who was the head of the FBI, was a racist and he said we don't want any black people.
If you have an adversary, you don't have to respect what they're saying, but respect their right to say it.
I met a white man once, who claimed that every black man has a gene which makes him violent. To which, I said I had never been violent and that he was wrong.
Rock 'n' roll was uniting black kids and white kids, and rock 'n' roll is not being given credit... for being just as important to the civil rights movement as the activists.
I try to bring out the humanity in people.
I am not so naive as to think everyone will change. There are certainly those who will go to their graves as hateful, violent racists.
Knowledge, information, wit, and the way you disseminate these attributes can often prove to be a more disarming weapon against an enemy or some with whom your ideology is in conflict, than violence or lethal weapons.
Music teaches us how to work together, how to harmonize.
You can legislate behavior but you cannot legislate belief. Patience is what it takes. But patience doesn't mean sitting around on your butt waiting for something to happen.
Racism is a cancer. Black people have been dealing with this ever since we landed on these shores in shackles and chains. If we've been doing it for that long, those of us who are impatient need to be a little more patient and keep on addressing those things, not ignoring it. White people need to do the same thing. Don't turn a blind eye to it.
Every racist that I know - and I know a lot of racists - every racist that I know voted for Donald Trump.
We would not have rock and roll without Chuck Berry, and when I first heard Chuck Berry, I fell in love with that music, and when I saw him, I changed my whole career trajectory that I was on as a kid.
The most powerful tools you can have are information and knowledge.
Music absolutely played a massive role in bridging many gaps in the racial divides I would encounter.
I have a former Baltimore City police officer's uniform and his robe and hood. He was the grand dragon, which means state leader. His day job, what paid his bills, he was a Baltimore City police officer, not an undercover officer in the Klan gathering intelligence, but a bona fide Klansmen on the Baltimore City police force.
You don't change the system without changing the people behind the system.
