Ing Bony > Ing's Quotes

“If there’s a place for tolerance in racial healing, perhaps it has to do with tolerating my own feelings of discomfort that arise when a person, of any color, expresses emotion not welcome in the culture of niceness. It also has to do with tolerating my own feelings of shame, humiliation, regret, anger, and fear so I can engage, not run. For me, tolerance is not about others, it’s about accepting my own uncomfortable emotions as I adjust to a changing view of myself as imperfect and vulnerable. As human.”
― Debby Irving, Waking Up White: And Finding Myself in the Story of Race

“If you can do nothing else, do whatever is in your power to make the people in your life feel completely unashamed of who they are.”
― Sam Killermann

“We have got some very big problems confronting us and let us not make any mistake about it, human history in the future is fraught with tragedy ... It's only through people making a stand against that tragedy and being doggedly optimistic that we are going to win through. If you look at the plight of the human race it could well tip you into despair, so you have to be very strong.”
― Robert James Brown

“Power in the hands of the reformer is no less potentially corrupting than in the hands of the oppressor.”
― Derrick Bell, Ethical Ambition: Living a Life of Meaning and Worth

“To be a jazz freedom fighter is to attempt to galvanize and energize world-weary people into forms of organization with accountable leadership that promote critical exchange and broad reflection. The interplay of individuality and unity is not one of uniformity and unanimity imposed from above but rather of conflict among diverse groupings that reach a dynamic consensus subject to questioning and criticism. As with a soloist in a jazz quartet, quintet or band, individuality is promoted in order to sustain and increase the creative tension with the group--a tension that yields higher levels of performance to achieve the aim of the collective project. This kind of critical and democratic sensibility flies in the face of any policing of borders and boundaries of "blackness", "maleness", "femaleness", or "whiteness".”
― Cornel West, Race Matters

“Genuine equality means not treating everyone the same, but attending equally to everyone’s different needs.”
― Terry Eagleton, Why Marx Was Right

“Dead, your Majesty. Dead, my lords and gentlemen. Dead, Right Reverends and Wrong Reverends of every order. Dead, men and women, born with Heavenly compassion in your hearts. And dying thus around us every day.”
― Charles Dickens, Bleak House

“The opposite of poverty is not wealth. In too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.”
― Bryan Stevenson

“Once you realize that trickle-down economics does not work, you will see the excessive tax cuts for the rich as what they are -- a simple upward redistribution of income, rather than a way to make all of us richer, as we were told.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

“Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system.”
― Dorothy Day

“When I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion.”
― Abraham Lincoln