Quotes About Discrimination

I don't believe in blanket statements on race.

The American Catholic Church made statements on racism as far back as the 1940s and '50s. 'Colored' Catholic girls could not live in the dorms at Catholic University - the bishops' university - up into the 1940s.

History will do what it always does. It will make ignorant statements, in retrospect, seem shortsighted and discriminatory, and the women who will serve their country bravely in the jobs that are now opening up will prove them wrong. Just like we always have.

When I was going to gay bars in my 20s and 30s, the older guys there explained to me that the police would occasionally raid these places and march the clients out, load them onto paddy wagons, drive them down to the station, photograph them, fingerprint them and put their names on a list. They were doing nothing wrong, and it was criminalized.

One of the most marvelous features of Canton is the city of house boats, floating and stationary, in which about a quarter of a million people live and, it may with truth be added, are born and die. This population is quite distinct in race from the land population of Canton, which looks down upon it as a pariah and alien caste.

You know what the lowest rated episode we ever had was? Where Captain Kirk kissed Uhuru - a white man kissing an African-American woman. All the stations in the American South - in Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana - refused to air it. And so our ratings plummeted.

Some social scientists say that in-group/out-group biases are hard-wired into the human brain. Even without overt prejudice, it is cognitively convenient for people to sort items into categories and respond based on what is usually associated with those categories: a form of statistical discrimination, playing the odds.

Boys have always known they could do anything; all they had to do was look around at their presidents, religious leaders, professional athletes, at the statues that stand erect in big cities and small. Girls have always known they were allowed to feel anything - except anger.

Too often, customary practices and discrimination on the basis of gender, ethnicity, race, religion, social status, or class are the root sources of pervasive inequality in many countries.

In this country, we force millions of people - who are largely black and brown - into a permanent second-class status simply because they once committed a crime.

I believe employment regulations for women, whereby the prospective employer is not able to inquire about the interviewee's status regarding children, childcare, or indeed their intention of becoming a parent, are counterproductive.

I think it's important to realize that law enforcement does do a very good job oftentimes of trying to ensure the safety and security of their people. But oftentimes, where they fail is communities of color and in lower socioeconomic status communities where they discriminate against these people.

No woman anywhere should be denied access to quality healthcare because of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status.

Education in this country is about how to maintain the status quo and to perpetuate racism.

Spatial racism, the erasure of black faces in a predominantly white city, is in full effect in both Crown Heights and Center City Philadelphia. This racism demands that bodies that don't conform to a mandated 'white' status quo can be redlined out of a space.

Though few hiring managers would deliberately choose to offer women less money than their male counterparts, when using salary history to determine compensation, they unintentionally preserve the status quo. Too often, women will have a lower salary history, and, therefore get a lower offer.

Film is not a woman's medium. If you weren't the hottest kid in town, men stayed away from you.

I really couldn't come out until after I got my citizenship, because it was a disclaim - back then, it could have been a disqualifier. I could have been denied my U.S. citizenship because I was gay. So I didn't - I stayed quiet.

One of the side benefits of staying in the closet is you can have a much bigger career.

All Israelis think Arabs steal cars.

I learned that when I go in a store and a person of color goes in the store, that they might watch them because they're afraid they're gonna steal something. They're not gonna watch me because I'm white.

I've been arrested for 'stealing' my own car, only to be released.

Groups like the NAACP, The Anti-Defamation League, NOW and GLAAD, will respond to derisive language directed at their constituents. The price paid by those who cavalierly chose to verbally disrespect the dignity of African Americans, Jews, women and homosexuals is steep.

Some discrimination is perfectly reasonable. The discrimination between trying to teach our kids what most of human history has thought was a desirable lifestyle that will contribute to their happiness, and trying to deter them - not to prohibit, and not to punish - but trying to steer them in a direction that will contribute to their happiness.