Albert Memmi Quotes

#1. The most serious blow suffered by the colonized is being removed from history and from the community. Colonization usurps any free role in either war or peace, every decision contributing to his destiny and that of the world, and all cultural and social responsibility.

Albert Memmi

#2. Racism does not limit itself to biology or economics or psychology or metaphysics; it attacks along many fronts and in many forms, deploying whatever is at hand, and even what is not, inventing when the need arises.

Albert Memmi

#3. Now, I want to remember all this. My life has known days of innocence when I had only to close my eyes in order not to see.

Albert Memmi

#4. There is a strange kind of tragic enigma associated with the problem of racism. No one, or almost no one, wishes to see themselves as racist; still racism persists, real and tenacious.

Albert Memmi

#5. I was sort of a half-breed of colonization, understanding everyone because I belonged completely to no one.

Albert Memmi

#6. Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color." - - Unknown
"Racism rests upon and functions as a kind of seesaw: the persecutor rises by debasing and inferiorizing his victim.

Albert Memmi

#7. It is significant that racism is part of colonialism throughout the world; and it is no coincidence. Racism sums up and symbolizes the fundamental relation which unites colonialist and colonized.

Albert Memmi

#8. Just as I sat on the fence between two civilizations, so would I now find myself between two classes; and I realized that, in trying to sit on several chairs, one generally lands on the floor.

Albert Memmi