Quotes About Inequality

I'm not speaking in favor of killing innovation. I'm speaking in favor of centrist use of the market, which involves necessarily a considerable degree of regulation. Markets by themselves will get themselves inevitably into inequality and into their own destruction. It will happen again and again.

Money speaks, but it speaks with a male voice.

I know that money speaks more loudly than need.

Low-income people, racial or ethnic minorities, pregnant women, seniors, people with special needs, people in rural areas - they all have a much harder time accessing a dentist than other groups of Americans.

I think, to a great degree, we humans still divide ourselves into two species, even though we are monotypic. There are males and females. We see them as different and not equal.

When I see the black experience - there's not one, but it is specific, and you can't ignore it.

We're raised to believe that black men have to be one specific way.

While easy to understand, the income-based poverty line has limitations. Specifically, the median monthly household income measures only income without considering assets.

The reality is that race in the United States operates on a spectrum from black to white. Doesn't mean that people who are in between don't experience racism, but it means that the closer you are to white on that spectrum, the better off you are. And the closer to black that you are on that spectrum, the worse off your are.

After years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless.

There are more repercussions for a person being a chronic speeding violator in our country, than there is for a big bank being a chronic violator of S.E.C. rules!

I decided that I wanted to spend my career fighting inequality rather than making myself more comfortable.

We spend more on cows than the poor.

We know that there are people in our nation, black people, who are systematically being disenfranchised in a number of spheres in our lives.

I didn't really want to be a filmmaker, growing up. Other than Spike Lee's movies, I would think, 'Where is a place for me?' We were so damn poor that it just seemed too far beyond.

Having our own children in good schools does not inure us from the ill-effect of others having theirs in poor schools. Having great roads within our gated homes and offices does not help when our fancy cars spill out on to poor public roads.

In countries where there are no racial differences or no religious differences, people find other reasons to set aside one certain group of people and generally spit in their direction.

Income splitting benefits only fifteen per cent, mostly the wealthiest Canadians, but it's paid for by everyone.

While professional basketball, football, and baseball players make millions and their salaries represent well over 50% of the billions generated by those sports, the spoils of boxing don't often make it to the boxers.

There were a couple Aborigines in my primary school, but we never spoke to them. They kept to themselves, and we never really even locked eyes. They weren't acknowledged officially either.

There are schoolteachers around the country that work second jobs after their teaching duties are done: one woman in North Dakota I spoke to was heading off to clean houses after the final bell in order to pay her rent.

My mom grew up in extreme poverty, and always spoke of it with a look of disgust. She felt pressured to fit in, and felt shame about her house, clothes, and general appearance.

I wanted to use my voice to address colourism because I am so aware of how awful it is and it is just something that needs to be spoken about.

Luck doesn't shine her light on each of us equally. She is arbitrary, irrational, unfair and sometimes downright cruel.