Inequalities Quotes

“In these downbeat times, we need as much hope and courage as we do vision and analysis; we must accent the best of each other even as we point out the vicious effects of our racial divide and pernicious consequences of our maldistribution of wealth and power. We simply cannot enter the twenty-first century at each other's throats, even as we acknowledge the weighty forces of racism, patriarchy, economic inequality, homophobia, and ecological abuse on our necks. We are at a crucial crossroad in the history of this nation--and we either hang together by combating these forces that divide and degrade us or we hang separately. Do we have the intelligence, humor, imagination, courage, tolerance, love, respect, and will to meet the challenge? Time will tell. None of us alone can save the nation or world. But each of us can make a positive difference if we commit ourselves to do so.”
― Cornel West, Race Matters

“But now, looking back, the era since the fall of the Berlin Wall seems like one of complacency, of opportunities lost. Enormous inequalities – of wealth and opportunity – have been allowed to grow, between nations and within nations. In particular, the disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the long years of austerity policies imposed on ordinary people following the scandalous economic crash of 2008, have brought us to a present in which Far Right ideologies and tribal nationalisms proliferate. Racism, in its traditional forms and in its modernised, better-marketed versions, is once again on the rise, stirring beneath our civilised streets like a buried monster awakening. For the moment we seem to lack any progressive cause to unite us. Instead, even in the wealthy democracies of the West, we're fracturing into rival camps from which to compete bitterly for resources or power.”
― Kazuo Ishiguro, My Twentieth Century Evening and Other Small Breakthroughs: The Nobel Lecture

“Life is a merciless bully for children born into circumstances of grinding poverty, to unhappy families broken apart by crime, drugs, alcohol. It brutalises the affections, cramps the intellect, destroys aspiration.”
― Victoria Clayton, Clouds Among the Stars

“27 % de femmes à l'Assemblée, 25 % au Sénat. L'exécutif froufroutait un peu, ça faisait dynamique et moderne, intégrant et glamour. Fonction publique : 51,7 % de femmes, pour 20,3 % de postes de direction. 10 % de préfets, et 11 % d'ambassadeurs. Je vous présente ma femme, elle s'occupe des petits fours.”
― Chloé Delaume, Les Sorcières de la République

“The activism and advocacy geared towards bringing greater visibility, influence and authority of
women are not against men (somehow this perception thrives). The role of men can never be
disqualified or diminished. We have to work with them – with patience and perseverance. We also
have to raise feminist kids so that they could internalize the benefits of having strong and skilled women in society and family. The goal of gender equality, then, would not remain a distant dream for a vast majority of women including minority gender.”
― RAKHSHINDA PERVEEN