Quotes About Discrimination

A singular thing—he was a devout Catholic, went every morning to mass, and kneeled to a merciful redeemer who had said: "Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not." Little French children, of course; no little German children!

Me black and beautiful' was the first thing she taught me. Then she pointed to the policeman with the gun outside and taught me: 'He pig.

Truly white supremacist states, such as the former apartheid government of South Africa, do not elect black presidents or vice presidents as does the United States, any more than Islamic supremacist societies like Iran or Saudi Arabia would ever allow a Christian or Jew to become their head of state.47

In short, between men and women you want... Equality. Equality! You can't mean it. Man and woman are two different creatures. I said equality. I didn't say identity.

A chair is not a caste.

She worked like a dog to support us, doing whatever she had to do, but each night, at bedtime, she kissed me good night and told me I could be anything in America. It was the dream that had brought her here and she passed it on to me. But, it was a lie. For people like us, anyway. Folks who are from the wrong place, or have the wrong color skin, or speak the wrong language, or pray to the wrong God.

she knew what it was like to come here looking for better and be treated as worse

Folks who are from the wrong place, or have the wrong color skin, or speak the wrong language, or pray to the wrong God.

Your dad cleared out our savings account. And they won't give me a credit card unless your father or my father cosigns." She lit up a cigarette. "Sweet Jesus, it's 1974. I have a job. I make money. And a woman can't get a credit card without a man's signature. It's a man's world, baby girl.

in 1974 a grown woman with a job couldn't get a credit card in her name.

But, it was a lie. For people like us, anyway. Folks who are from the wrong place, or have the wrong color skin, or speak the wrong language, or pray to the wrong God.

Jews. Communists. Homosexuals. Freemasons. Jehovah's Witnesses. Do you know these people?

the wrong skin color. Sadly, that ugliness was a part of life

It circled back to her looks, as most snide comments did. Surely a pretty blond girl had to be shallow and dim-witted.

That box there. The empty one. Separate the Jews born in France from those born elsewhere. We are only interested in foreign-born Jews. Men, women, and children." "Why?" "They're Jews. Who cares? Now get to work.

It was a terrible idea to live a life dictated by someone else's prejudices.

Because they are ignorant. And cruelty is the weapon of the ignorant." "But what if I don't want to be Jewish?

I won't eat anything green.

That's illegal," the counselor sputtered. If Swarthmore received federal money—and it almost certainly did—they were violating Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities. I was free to leave school if I chose, but they couldn't force me out.

This view is an instance of what my friend Skip Gates has called "cultural geneticism,"80 It has, in Bertrand Russell's wicked phrase, "the virtues of theft over honest toil." On this view, you earn rights to culture that is marked with the mark of your race— or your nation—simply by having a racial identity.

It's easier bein' a boy, 'cause when someone needs somethin' done like holdin' a horse, they'll always pick a boy 'cause they think the dumbest boy will be better at it than the brightest girl, which is stupid, but there you are.

Boys get to do what they want in this world, and girls do not.

Race, it turns out, is above all a politically useful fiction.

White" is seen as the default, the absence of race. ...Whiteness, then, is shrouded in silence. To speak about it openly is to break a taboo.