Minority Rights Quotes

“In a republic this rule ought to be observed: that the majority should not have the predominant power.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero, On the Republic / On the Laws

“Those who benefit from unearned privilege are too often quick to discount those who don't.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Bigotry hurts the economy, so the next time you want to blame minorities for your problems, first take a look in the mirror.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“This is about Us, with a capital U; everybody who looks like us, feels like us, and is experiencing this pain with us.”
― Angie Thomas, The Hate U Give

“Inequality and poverty, unhealth and no wealth are hand in hand.
And if we are all born equal that should be true in all lands.
We cannot divide the world between poor and rich countries.
It's like saying the ones are good, the others are junkies.
That can only increase more prejudice, miseries and sorrow.
Turning the wheel today it will lead to a better tomorrow.”
― Ana Claudia Antunes, The Mysterious Murder of Marilyn Monroe

“Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I’d never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs—expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both.”
― Stacey Abrams, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

“I confronted the expected stereotypes by knowing what they were and building an alternate narrative about myself.”
― Stacey Abrams, Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

“The reason diversity quotas or affirmative action initiatives exist is to open a door that might otherwise be shut. But opening that door just enough to let one person through and then letting it shut once more isn’t the progress we need.”
― Rohit Bhargava, Beyond Diversity

“The sad reality of forced conversion is the wound remains as fresh as ever.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“Authorities’ failure to address the worsening conditions to perform the religiously imperative custom to cremate dead has tipped many of its minority citizens into premature graves.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“I feel a deep sense of injustice that Minority protection and Anti forced conversion bills are flushed down the loo by the lawmakers. This has exposed the outrageously undemocratic underworld which continues to sow distrust in parliamentary democracy to restore the charm and calm.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“The wilful obliteration has born a left-out generation of unemployed people, underprivileged farmers, persecuted minorities and disheartened low-income families with scars which will never heal.”
― Qamar Rafiq

“Research shows that where you grew up, where you went to school, and even where you work currently can give you up to a 12 times advantage in gaining access to opportunity. Which is to say, if you weren't handed professional connections by your parents or your neighborhood or your boarding school alumni network, you need to build them on your own.”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“There is a reason why the waiting game won't serve your career. The truth is, not everyone at your company will have your best interests at heart, and not everyone will want you to get ahead. This could be for any number of reasons - they may see you as competition, they may mentor someone at your level who they want to help excel, they may simply not like you. Who knows their motivations, and frankly, who cares?”
― Lauren Wesley Wilson, What Do You Need?: How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers to Accelerate Their Path to Success

“The question is not whether Indian Muslims belong to India—the question is whether India, as a democracy, has the courage to honour its own founding principles.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“A strong majority builds. A weak majority blames. A failing majority, drowning in its own inadequacy, turns to oppression—clinging to cruelty as a substitute for achievement, feeding on the suffering of its minorities to mask its own decay.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“Minority is not a statistic but a relationship to power. It is felt in the constant tax of translating yourself into formats that grant provisional humanity.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“To be a minority is not only to live on the margins. It is to remind the center that the narrative is incomplete.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan

“Once a community has been identified as the remainder minority in the nation’s foundational myth, it is futile to expect the state to undo that designation. The state always requires a remainder — someone to complete its story of belonging by embodying exclusion. And it takes immense institutional effort to construct, legitimize, and stabilize that category. Once achieved, it is rarely relinquished. Even if governments change, the structure remains: the new regime will continue to press the same community deeper into the remainder mould — unless it discovers another group that can inhabit that role more conveniently, more profitably, and with less resistance. The myth must always have its remainder; without it, the nation would lose its border, its coherence, and its illusion of purity.”
― Adeel Ahmed Khan