Madi Boeckman

“This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering—by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”
― Matthew Desmond, Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City

“Affordable housing is a human-capital investment, just like job programs or education, one that would strengthen and steady the American workforce. By and large, the poor do not want some small life. They don’t want to game the system or eke out an existence; they want to thrive and contribute: to become nurses (that was Vanessa’s dream) or run their own charities (that was Arleen’s). A stable home would extend to them the opportunity to realize those dreams.”
― Matthew Desmond

“A political order is premised not just on who can vote but on what they can vote for, which is to say on what can be imagined. And our political imagination is rooted in our history, our culture, and our myths.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message

“Novels, memoirs, paintings, sculptures, statues, monuments, films, miniseries, advertisements, and journalism all order our reality. Jim Crow segregation—with its signage and cap-doffing rituals—was both policy and a kind of public theater. The arts tell us what is possible and what is not, because, among other things, they tell us who is human and who is not.”
― Ta-Nehisi Coates, The Message