#discrimination

The prisons in the United States had long been an extreme reflection of the American system itself: the stark life differences between rich and poor, the racism, the use of victims against one another, the lack of resources of the underclass to speak out, the endless "reforms" that changed little. Dostoevski once said: "The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons." It had long been true, and prisoners knew this better than anyone, that the poorer you were the more likely you were to end up in jail. This was not just because the poor committed more crimes. In fact, they did. The rich did not have to commit crimes to get what they wanted; the laws were on their side. But when the rich did commit crimes, they often were not prosecuted, and if they were they could get out on bail, hire clever lawyers, get better treatment from judges. Somehow, the jails ended up full of poor black people. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#justice-system #change

Long before there was discrimination against blacks, there was discrimination against white southerners. When large numbers of these country people moved north during World War II, they were aggressively excluded from neighborhoods, jobs, and homes - not because of their skin color, but their accents. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#politics #southerners #home

Normally we divide the external world into that which we consider to be good or valuable, bad or worthless, or neither. Most of the time these discriminations are incorrect or have little meaning. For example, our habitual way of categorizing people as friends, enemies, and strangers depending on how they make us feel is both incorrect and a great obstacle to developing impartial love for all living beings. Rather than holding so tightly to our discriminations of the external world, it would be much more beneficial if we learned to discriminate between valuable and worthless states of mind. ↗

— Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

#discrimination #enemies #friends #good #mind

Mrs. Parks' act of brave defiance rocked the foundation of American society and inspired generations of civil rights leaders and created a sense of hope for every American facing legal discrimination in this country. ↗

— Kendrick Meek

#american #american society #brave #civil #civil rights

Hopefully, 21 years later, Judge Roberts possesses an openness with respect to issues of gender-based wage discrimination. ↗

— Olympia Snowe

#hopefully #issues #judge #judge roberts #later

We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination. ↗

— Olympia Snowe

#basis #breathtaking #constitute #discrimination #disease

Discrimination is a disease. ↗

— Roger Staubach

#disease

We cannot keep turning our backs on gay and lesbian Americans. I have fought too hard and too long against discrimination based on race and color not to stand up against discrimination based on sexual orientation. ↗

— John Lewis

#equal-rights #gays #lesbians #racial-discrimination #sexual-orientation

Gays, lesbians, straights, feminists, fascist pigs, communists, Hare Krishnas - none of them bother me. I don't care what banner they raise. But what I can't stand are hollow people. When I'm with them I just can't bare it, and wind up saying things I shouldn't. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#equality #lgbt #lgbtq #equality

Equality is not the empirical claim that all groups of humans are interchangeable; it is the moral principle that individuals should not be judged or constrained by the average properties of their group. ↗

— Steven Pinker

#equality #morality #psychology #equality