Quotes About Activism

All the other rappers around me aren't saying anything worthwhile. They're lost in rap: all they do is tell you they're a sick MC and they're better than you. I don't want to look like all these other little punk, dress-up, fake, manufactured artists. I'm not a rapper. I'm an activist.

One thing that makes me very happy is to see the growing activism among chefs in America. Chefs like Tom Colicchio, Bill Telepan, and Rachel Ray and food writers like Michael Pollan have gone to Congress, indeed sometimes even have testified before Congress, have lent this support to Mrs. Obama's effort to combat childhood obesity.

It's not a bad thing fighting for equality and helping the poor. It's not a bad thing to have on your professional tombstone: 'He believed in equality and he helped the poor.'

If being the lightning rod that started the Tea Party is what's written on my tombstone, I'll be very happy.

Tommy Smothers is a hero of mine.

We show our faces to demand that politicians making promises stick to those promises. We show our faces to ensure that the youth of today will flourish tomorrow.

Climate change is real, and the fossil fuel industry is pouring tons and tons of money into campaign contributions. That's something to be angry about.

I joined the SDP as a founder member a few days after my 18th birthday in 1981. I was a councillor, activist and parliamentary candidate for the SDP and its successor party, the Liberal Democrats, for 14 years before joining Labour when Tony Blair became leader and abolished Labour's old clause IV - committing to general nationalisation - in 1995.

This is the real problem feminism faces. Too many people are willfully ignorant about what the word means and what the movement aims to achieve.

Too many people have lost their lives, particularly in the African-American community, for the right to vote. I stand in their shadows and I am standing on their shoulders.

On the one hand, the guns were there to help capture the imagination of the people. But more important, since we knew that you couldn't observe the police without guns, we took our guns with us to let the police know that we have an equalizer.

Black Lives Matter is our call to action. It is a tool to reimagine a world where black people are free to exist, free to live. It is a tool for our allies to show up differently for us.

I take a very different approach to public service. I'm a person that always takes it out in the streets and in the courts... the tool box that is attached to me is very diverse.

I use my platform as a tool and a way to speak about greater change.

Political activists in Hong Kong and Taiwan use Facebook as their primary tool to mobilize support for their causes and activities.

I was in the Black Power movement. I feel as energized about Black Lives Matter. I don't feel in any way separated from Black Lives Matter. I do believe we are hand and glove. I am the legislative tool.

With Black Lives Matter, we knew from the very beginning that it wasn't just going to live online. We were like, 'We're creating this thing and then it's also going to live with black folks on the street and protests and organizations.' It was very important for us to use the hashtag as a way to have a larger conversation and as an organizing tool.

You don't have to be a professional athlete to be heard - the most powerful tool you have is your voice.

When we talk about justice in America we're really talking about justice brought about by the people, not by judges who are tools of the establishment or prosecutors who are are equally tools of the establishment or the wardens or the police officers.

The women's movement gave me a set of tools to think about things like my body and how people react to me and the way that my dating life was going. It's a very practical movement - yes, it's about issues like how we can get more women MPs elected, but it's also about how feminism affects things like your relationship.

We desire and thirst for freedom, democracy and the rule of law just like anyone else. And we are prepared to fight tooth and nail for all of those things.

All of the great social justice advances that we ever had in this country have come not from people with big titles and not from people at the top, but just from everyday people getting together saying 'Enough is enough. I'm going to change this, and I'm going to get involved, and I am going to be engaged.'

I guess, topic to topic, you could consider me a left-leaning person.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.