Quotes About Discrimination

As a black man, sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing has underlying bigotry, or it's a normal conversation and you're being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when its not there.

When the world's moving towards being the most inclusive it's ever been, it's unthinkable that certain basic aspects of life are still so unfair for the black community.

At screenings for 'Black in America,' I've heard people say, 'Well you know, I never thought you were black until you did Katrina, and then I thought you were black.'

India will have to hang down her head in shame if even one person is left who is said in any way to be untouchable.

Serbia has become a pariah nation, untouchable like a leper.

I feel disheartened when I see stereotypes, because it's untrue and unfair. It just raises the level of inequality.

It's not unusual for socio-economic, even racial or ethnic, groups to cluster.

I was born in a part of Tamil Nadu notorious for eliminating the girl child. I was the third daughter born to my parents and I have my mother to thank for deciding that I was not an unwanted child.

When I was a child, growing up on a council estate in the northeast of England, I imbibed enough of the background racial tensions of the late 1970s and 1980s to feel profoundly unwelcome in Britain.

It was an unwritten law that black comics were not permitted to work white nightclubs. You could sing and you could dance, but you couldn't stand flat-footed and talk; that was a no-no.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

There's racism everywhere in the world; it's not just Sweden, it's everywhere, but other than that I had a pretty okay upbringing.

We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.

For women, no matter what career, what path you choose, it's still an uphill battle to work your way up to these top leadership positions. And you're much more closely scrutinized for everything - for things that men are not.

I believe that what is legislated bleeds down into everything. So if the legislation continues to uphold anything that doesn't support equal rights and civil rights, that bleeds down into Matthew Shepard being murdered.

Being a woman of color, I can truthfully state that I don't feel safe around those who are sworn to honor and uphold the law.

I was never concretely aware of the extent of anti-Semitism in the United States and in the upper levels of the State Department.

Policing was developed, created, and implemented for the elite, and - in the case of the United States - the elites were and almost entirely remain white, upper middle class, cisgender straight men.

I have a class prejudice - against the upper class, which is foolish.

Everything is about class in England, whether it's upper, lower or middle. Why should that be?

I grew up on the north side of Chicago, in West Rogers Park, an overwhelmingly Jewish neighborhood. When I was 13, my parents moved to Winnetka, Illinois, an upper class, WASPy suburb where Jews - as well as Blacks and Catholics - were unwelcome on many blocks. I suffered the spiritual equivalent of whiplash.

I believe in the law. I think we have a great system of justice. But I do think that system of justice has been corrupted by racism and classism. I think it's difficult for 'poor people' - poor white people, brown people - to be treated fairly before the law in the same way that upper-class people are.

We live in a world where if you're white, an upper-class male of extreme privilege, and able-bodied, and you're nothing that takes you away from that norm, then you're going to have - then the world will not assign you problems because of what you are. That is actually the world we live in.

The caste systems of sex and race are interdependent and can only be uprooted together.