We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables — the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers — to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.

We are still conditioning people in this country and, indeed, all over the globe to the myth of white superiority. We are constantly being told that we don't have racism in this country anymore, but most of the people who are saying that are white. White people think it isn't happening because it isn't happening to them.

I think I'm the only 65-year-old actress in Los Angeles who hasn't had plastic surgery, so somebody's gotta play the old-lady parts!

We learn to be racist, therefore we can learn not to be racist. Racism is not genetical. It has everything to do with power.

When you say to a person of colour, 'When I see you, I don't see you Black I just see everybody the same' think about that. You don't have the right to say to a person, 'I do not see you as you are I want to see you as I would be more comfortable seeing you.'

I'm a practicing Christian - and I'm going to keep practicing till I get it right - but I don't feel everyone has to practice the same religion that I do. You have a right to worship who you choose and how you choose to.

We dont know anything about racism. Weve never experienced it. If words can make a difference in your life for seven minutes, how would it affect you if you heard this every day of your life?

I am absolutely opposed to political correctness. You cannot confront hate speech until you've experienced it. You need to hear every side of the issue instead of just one.

Racism is a learned affliction and anything that is learned can be unlearned

You are not born racist. You are born into a racist society. And like anything else, if you can learn it, you can unlearn it. But some people choose not to unlearn it, because they're afraid they'll lose power if they share with other people. We are afraid of sharing power. That's what it's all about.

No white group has founded a major religion on this planet. The major religious were started in the Orient and the Middle East, not in Greece and Rome. I always knew you racists didn't have a prayer.

To sit back and do nothing is to cooperate with the oppressor.

I've got news for you: There are going to be people other than Christians in the hereafter. What are you going to do about it? Are you not going to go?

450,000 Iraqi children have died from starvation and lack of medicine as a result of our embargo. If you believe God loves little children - and hundreds of thousands more Iraqi children will die if there is war - you have to believe that God will judge us very harshly for this.

I don't have a Twitter account. I don't go to fan club gatherings. I'm not one of those actors who spends a lot of time engaging with the audience.