Equity And Justice Quotes

“If I am going to be afraid, I might as well do it honest. Arm in arm with everyone I love, adorned in blood and bruises, singing jokes on our way to the grave.”
― Hanif Abdurraqib, A Little Devil in America: Notes in Praise of Black Performance

“Allies tend to crowd out the space for anger with their demands that things be comfortable for them. They want to be educated, want someone to be kind to them whether they have earned that kindness or not. The process of becoming an ally requires a lot of emotional investment, and far too often the heavy lifting of that emotional labor is done by the marginalized, not the privileged. But part of that journey from being a would-be ally to becoming an ally to actually becoming an accomplice is anger.

Anger doesn't have to be erudite to be valid. It doesn't have to be nice or calm in order to be heard. In fact, I would argue that despite narratives that present the anger of Black women as dangerous, that render being angry in public as a reason to tune out the voices of marginalized people, it is that anger and the expressing of it that saves communities. No one has ever freed themselves from oppression by asking nicely.”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

“You can only have options if you've not been pushed to the wall.”
― Martin Uzochukwu Ugwu

“The world is created well enough, only why and with what right do people, thought Yergunov, divide their fellows into the sober and the drunken, the employed and the dismissed, and so on. Why do the sober and well fed sleep comfortably in their homes while the drunken and the hungry must wander about the country without a refuge? Why was it that if anyone had not a job and did not get a salary he had to go hungry, without clothes and boots?

Whose idea was it? Why was it the birds and the wild beasts in the woods did not have jobs and get salaries, but lived as they pleased?

- The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories”
― Chekhov Anton Pavlovich

“I believe in the radical equality of all human beings. No human is of greater or lesser value than anyone else. The word “radical” has in its beginnings the word “root,” meaning what is foundational. I believe the commitment to radical equality is the root, or foundation, of inclusive meeting practices and fair facilitation.”
― Mark Smutny, Thrive: The Facilitator's Guide to Radically Inclusive Meetings

“Inferiority (if exists any)
Lies only in the mind
Of the one who believes
Himself "superior".”
― Laure Lacornette

“But the peculiar impact of white fragility on the dynamics between white women means that too often mainstream white feminists get hung up on being polite at the expense of being effective.”
― Mikki Kendall, Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot

“Equity isn't a belief, it's the foundation of a civilized society.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“There is no nation or state that enjoys economic takeoff by inciting class hatred.

You cannot aspire to lead the poor into prosperity by condemning the rich into adversity. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.

Achieving collective prosperity goal through the bottom-up economic model without proper firewalls against its ills is like sitting on that wheelbarrow and trying to lift yourself up by the handles.”
― Njau Kihia

“Championing equity is a centering of love.”
― Joy Donnell, Show Us Your Fire

“The essence of justice lies in punishment proportional to the harm, not merely to restore what was taken or lost, but to uphold the moral and social order, affirm the dignity of the wronged, and deter future transgressions, acknowledging that while restoration heals in its many forms, retribution primarily balances the scales of accountability.”
― Njau Kihia

“This is something blind people have said (but really shouldn't have to), over and over, to the sighted world around us: we're still people. We don't see, or see very well, but aside from that, we're just like you. The failure to appreciate this basic fact, that someone's difference does nothing to alter their humanity, is the wellspring of all discrimination, alienation, and oppression. It ought to be obvious, but if you're not disabled, it's stubbornly easy to forget. It's as though, with regard to blind people, the sighted lack any sense of object permanence, the understanding a baby develops when her father hides his face behind his hands: she knows he hasn't really gone any-where. He's still there.”
― Andrew Leland, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight