Anti Fascism Blog

Racism isn’t born, folks, it’s taught.  I have a two-year-old son.  You know what he hates?  Naps!  ~Dennis Leary

One day our descendants will think it incredible that we paid so much attention to things like the amount of melanin in our skin or the shape of our eyes or our gender instead of the unique identities of each of us as complex human beings.  ~Franklin Thomas

I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…. I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.  ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

If a white man falls off a chair drunk, it’s just a drunk.  If a Negro does, it’s the whole damn Negro race.  ~Bill Cosby

I got nothing against no Viet Cong.  No Vietnamese ever called me a nigger.  ~Muhammad Ali, 1967, refusing to fight in Vietnam

I think you should defend to the death their right to march, and then go down and meet them with baseball bats.  ~Woody Allen, on the Ku Klux Klan

The conquest of the earth, which mostly means the taking it away from those who have a different complexion or slightly flatter noses than ourselves, is not a pretty thing when you look into it.  ~Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

I swear to the Lord
I still can’t see
Why Democracy means
Everybody but me.
~Langston Hughes, The Black Man Speaks

To live anywhere in the world today and be against equality because of race or color is like living in Alaska and being against snow.  ~William Faulkner, Essays, Speeches and Public Letters

The African race is a rubber ball.  The harder you dash it to the ground, the higher it will rise.  ~African Proverb

A racially integrated community is a chronological term timed from the entrance of the first black family to the exit of the last white family.  ~Saul Alinsky

When we’re unemployed, we’re called lazy; when the whites are unemployed it’s called a depression.  ~Jesse Jackson

Laundry is the only thing that should be separated by color.  ~Author Unknown

Racial superiority is a mere pigment of the imagination.  ~Author Unknown

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women join the unqualified men in running our government.  ~Cissy Farenthold

Be nice to whites, they need you to rediscover their humanity.  ~Desmond Tutu

The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box.  As you grow older, you’ll see white men cheat black men every day of your life, but let me tell you something and don’t you forget it - whenever a white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash.  ~Harper Lee,  To kill a mockingbird.
Racism is man’s gravest threat to man - the maximum of hatred for a minimum of reason.  ~Abraham Joshua Heschel

The Modena City Ramblers were formed in 1991, a casual musical group that came together to entertain friends and family playing Irish folk music. Meeting up to jam more and more often, the Ramblers began to write their own tunes, inspired by popular Celtic-influenced bands like the Pogues and the Waterboys. Two years after their formation, the band recorded their first demo tape called Combat Folk. Featuring their punk/Irish folk songs and Italian resistance ballads, the demo sold more than 3000 copies, earning the Ramblers grassroots recognition all over Italy. Picked up by the independent label Helter Skelter, the band’s debut album, Riportando Tutto a Casa was released in 1994. Eventually distributed by Mercury, the disc went on to sell an impressive 185,000 copies. In the years that followed, Modena City Ramblers earned a reputation as a powerful live act, performing throughout Europe in collaboration with artists such as the Chieftains and Italian rock vocalist Bob Geldof. Their sophomore effort, La Grande Famiglia, experienced similar success to its predecessor, followed by Terra e Liberta which ushered in an era of international attention during which the Ramblers performed in nations such as Bolivia, Spain, Cuba and more. Known for their progressive politics, the band aligned itself with musicians of similar values such as Manu Chao, performing at festivals like the Independent Days Festival in Bologna and the Awesome Africa Festival in South Africa. Their 2002 production Radio Rebelde garnered them invitations to perform in locations near and far, including Algeria, the Czech Republic, Amsterdam and Mexico. The band’s 2004 album Viva la Vida! Viva la Muerte! (a quote from Zapatista leaders) found its way to Italian Top Ten charts, and opened doors for a 120 city tour. The Modena City Ramblers have become a staple of both the Italian rock scene and the leftist musical circuit alike.