Quotes from Clint Smith

I've been a follower of Arsenal Football Club since I was ten years old.

To operate with the aspiration of color-blindness in a country whose central operating mechanism for centuries has been race belies the logic of race-neutral public policy. Public policy must account for the historic and intentional pillaging of resources experienced by black Americans.

When you sing that this country was founded on freedom, don't forget the duet of shackles dragging against the ground my entire life.

Schools shouldn't have to choose between serving a student with special needs or cutting an art class, laying off teachers or using outdated textbooks. But these are the positions that far too many schools have been placed in, and only a meaningful acknowledgment of the problem can begin the process of getting them out.

Young people are constantly absorbing - through media, textbooks, and policy - the myths of American exceptionalism; for black children, this means that what they are taught in class does not match the world that they navigate daily.

I think about the history of racism in this country all the time.

The most important and brave thing someone can do, I think, in the face of dehumanization, is to continue to assert their humanity.

School desegregation is associated with higher graduation rates, greater employability, higher earnings, and decreased rates of incarceration.

In my home, guns were not something to be earned or celebrated. Water guns and Nerf guns were not allowed outside. B.B. guns were not even a part of the conversation.

Living under the perpetual and pervasive threat of racism seems, for black men and black women, to quite literally reduce lifespans.

Education is a human right - a recognition of dignity that each person should be afforded.

Schools are the single largest lever of mobility in this country. When we commit to creating and enforcing laws that acknowledge the injustice of the past, we open up the possibility of using schools as a means of reducing inequality.

Do those serving life sentences deserve access to educational opportunities never having a future beyond bars? The answer is yes and necessitates that in-prison education serves additional goals beyond reducing recidivism.

When the U.S. team went on its historic run to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, I was thirteen years old. Each game in that run - the astonishing victory against Portugal, the resilient win over Mexico, even the gutsy but unlucky effort against the Germans - propelled me to push my other athletic interests aside and focus only on soccer.

There is simply no better way to generate buzz for soccer in your country than having your team in the World Cup.

The beauty of the World Cup is that while thirty-two countries get to cheer for their respective teams, the event also affirms a global pluralism - it is as much a festival of cultural multiplicity as it is a competition featuring some of the best athletes in the world.

Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.

While the most disadvantaged students - most often poor students of color - receive the most considerable academic benefits from attending diverse schools, research demonstrates that young people in general, regardless of their background, experience profound benefits from attending integrated schools.

The benefits of prison education go beyond lowering recidivism rates and increasing post-release employment. It can also rekindle a sense of purpose and confidence.

This idea of shared humanity and the connections that we make with one another - that's what, in fact, makes life worth living.

To be clear, affirmative action is not, by itself, an adequate response to decades of systemic looting, but it has been an indispensible tool in inching us towards some semblance of a more equitable society.

Abolition seemed a fantasy when Frederick Douglass called for all slaves to be released.

Blackness remains the coat you can't take off.

Black artists deserve the opportunity to create work without the burden of alleviating the social ills plaguing many black communities.