Alan Tai

“Until the 1970s, American workers labored in factories making things-cars, homes that they and their neighbors consumed, which created a natural upper limit on prices and profit because they weren't just producers but consumers. The profits from their labor were reinvested into the factories and into them, the workers, to make sure they could keep buying the products they made; after all, they were the biggest share of the market. But in an economy where the biggest share of the money is being made in speculation by a tiny percent of people who own or control most of the investments, the worker gets a vanishingly small slice of the pie.”
― Batya Ungar-Sargon, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women

“It's hard for people that are intelligent that don't have a degree. We can bring something to the table. We just don't get the same opportunities as other people.”
― Batya Ungar-Sargon, Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women

“At the end of his life, the great picture book author and illustrator Maurice Sendak said on the NPR show Fresh Air, 'I cry a lot because I miss people. I cry a lot because they die, and I can't stop them. They leave me, and I love them more.'

He said, 'I'm finding out as I'm aging that I'm in love with the world.'

It has taken me all my life up to now to fall in love with the world, but I've started to feel it the last couple of years. To fall in love with the world isn't to ignore or overlook suffering, both human and otherwise. For me anyway, to fall in love with the world is to look up at the night sky and feel your mind swim before the beauty and the distance of the stars. It is to hold your children while they cry, to watch as the sycamore trees leaf out in June. When my breastbone starts to hurt, and my throat tightens, and tears well in my eyes, I want to look away from the feeling. I want to deflect with irony, or anything else that will keep me from feeling directly. We all know how loving ends. But I want to fall in love with the world anyway, to let it crack me open. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here.”
― John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet

“Cowardly silence aside, these executives could not have transformed commercial hip hop into a playground for destructive street icons alone. Clearly, the corporate takeover of commercial hip hop has also been facilitated, directly or indirectly, by artists (especially those who have become moguls and entrepreneurs) who gleefully rap about guns and bitches, liberal and conservative critics and academics, and journalists who uncritically profile these artists and hip hop fans of all races, classes, and genders. This shift was not inevitable; it was allowed to happen.”
― Tricia Rose, The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters