In 1946, speaking at Lincoln University, the first degree-granting historically black university in the U.S., Einstein said that racism was a "disease of white people" and added “I do not intend to be quiet about it," according to a 2007 article in the Harvard Gazette.
But Albert Einstein's newly translated private travel diaries from the 1920s reveal that he was racist in his early life, especially towards Chinese people.
The diaries were written between October 1922 and March 1923. In one entry Einstein wrote that the “Chinese don’t sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods. All this occurs quietly and demurely. Even the children are spiritless and look obtuse.”
Speaking about the “abundance of offspring” and the “fecundity” of the Chinese, he continued: “It would be a pity if these Chinese supplant all other races. For the likes of us the mere thought is unspeakably dreary.”
Einstein also derided the people of Ceylon, which is now known as Sri Lanka. In Ceylon, he wrote, the locals “live in great filth and considerable stench at ground level,” before adding they “do little, and need little. The simple economic cycle of life.”
Einstein also gave his thoughts on Japanese people, who he viewed in a more positive light, calling them "unostentatious, decent, altogether very appealing.” However, he also wrote the “intellectual needs of this nation seem to be weaker than their artistic ones – natural disposition?”
Einstein's diaries contain shocking details of his racism | Fox News
Thought so. But had to check.