Thaddeus Mathis Quotations

We're in a period of denial about the extent to which racism still exists as a structural phenomenon. It was just so evident in this storm. Even in the language people used.

Every institutional sector you can point to, I'll show you a racial disparity. When you have a racially structured system, there are more black people at the bottom because there's a dual system that sorts them at the bottom.

They're just trying to survive. You expect leadership to have more of a part in all of this.

They're not seeing the misery in their own families every day. We hide the poor in segregated neighborhoods, so it's easy to lose sight when you're zipping on the expressway every day to your job, then zipping back to the suburbs at night. You're seeing them at reunion time or when somebody calls up for some help. But now it's been made graphic to them. A lot of black people saw black poor people on television like everybody else.