Quotes About Discrimination

Melissa McCarthy just opened this new movie, 'Identity Thief,' and Rex Reed, who's a known critic, wrote a scathing commentary on her weight. I think that weight designation is one of the last frontiers of bullying. I don't know what the right 'ism' for it is, but I think that there's a level of that that's happening that's certainly not okay.

A lot of black men get in desperate situations because they don't see any other avenues to make it. You make a couple of mistakes today, that's all she wrote. You're not going to get a good job; nobody's gonna hire a felon. You can't even vote. They just want to silence you.

I came from Yale, where you get an extracurricular degree in self-importance because you went there. When AIDS happened, I was treated like an outcast. And I don't like that feeling.

The understanding that the political and intellectual class of the United States has of Mexico is a country whose position is that of a back yard.

'Senior Citizen' and 'Silver Surfer' are the new euphemisms. Unless you're a female presenter on TV, in which case you're ready for the knacker's yard at 35.

Imagine if a mob of Black people wanted to go in the White House. Imagine what'd happen. It'd be tear gas. It'd be rubber bullets. It'd be the whole nine yards.

Yeah, I'm sure there are stereotypes of Asian people.

I did a bit of modeling before I took up acting, and I was up for this big campaign - I can't remember which designer - and all these execs were looking at my portfolio. Then one said: 'We'd like to use you, but can you come back next year when you've lost this.' And he tapped the underside of his chin.

I remember during Easter one year, I was to get a pair of black patent shoes but you could only get them from the white stores, so my mother drew the outline of my feet on a brown paper bag in order to get the closest size, because we weren't allowed to go in the store to try them on.

Sikh is a 500 year old community and they have been living in U.S. for the past 114 years. Yet the Sikhs were mistaken to be Arabs in the post 9/11 scenario and beaten up. Doesn't this sound bizarre? I mean Sikhs and Arabs are as different as chalk and cheese.

The majority of my interactions with police were not good. There were a few good ones who were actually protecting the community. But then you have ones from the Valley. They never met me in their life, but since I'm a kid in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, they wanna slam me on the hood of the car. Sixteen years old.

Violence is black children going to school for 12 years and receiving 6 years' worth of education.

It doesn't matter if that felony happened three weeks ago or thirty-five years ago - for the rest of your life, you've got to check that box, knowing full well the odds are sky-high your application is going straight to the trash.

I hope that the mistakes made and suffering imposed upon Japanese Americans nearly 60 years ago will not be repeated against Arab Americans whose loyalties are now being called into question.

Blackface remains exoticist and offensive as a practice, not just because of its long tradition of being used to mock black selfhood, sexuality, and speech but because of its assertion that black people are merely white people sullied by dark skin.

There are some societies where women are not even allowed to drive a car, and that restriction is based in the name of religion and tradition. There are other countries where a woman can be punished if she does not cover her head.

The U.S. has long characterized Haitian immigrants as criminals. This tradition began in 1963 when the first boat of Haitians seeking political asylum was summarily rejected by U.S. immigration officials, while at the same time the U.S. admitted thousands of Cubans as refugees and political asylees.

I would sign an executive order protecting religious liberty, our first amendment rights, so Christian business owners and individuals don't face discrimination for having a traditional view of marriage.

In America, it is traditional to destroy the black body - it is heritage.

A constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage is a form of gay bashing and it would do nothing to protect traditional marriages.

We pride ourselves on our democratic traditions, but in Canada, women couldn't vote until 1918, Asians until 1948, and First Nations people living on reserves until 1960.

Some of the worst racist tragedies in history have been perfectly legal.

It's a tragedy for society to spend decades training people and then depriving them of work at some arbitrary age.

The appalling racial injustice inherent in the Trayvon Martin tragedy reminds us that there is still much to do.