“Despite undeniable progress for many, no African Americans are insulated from incidents of racial discrimination. Our careers, even our lives, are threatened because of our color.”

“[T]he racism that made slavery feasible is far from dead . . . and the civil rights gains, so hard won, are being steadily eroded.”

“… few whites are ready to actively promote civil rights for blacks.”

“[D]iscrimination in the workplace is as vicious (if less obvious) than it was when employers posted signs ‘no negras need apply.’”

“We rise and fall less as a result of our efforts than in response to the needs of a white society that condemns all blacks to quasi citizenship as surely as it segregated our parents.”

“Slavery is, as an example of what white America has done, a constant reminder of what white America might do.”

“Black people will never gain full equality in this country. … African Americans must confront and conquer the otherwise deadening reality of our permanent subordinate status.”

“Tolerated in good times, despised when things go wrong, as a people we [blacks] are scapegoated and sacrificed as distraction or catalyst for compromise to facilitate resolution of political differences or relieve economic adversity.”

– From Faces at the Bottom of the Well, a 1992 book by Professor Derrick Bell – the Harvard Law faculty member to whose words student Barack Obama is on tape exhorting his classmates to “open your hearts and minds.”