Quotes and passages on discrimination

How I wish we lived in a
time when laws were
not necessary to safeguard
us from discrimination.

Barbra Streisand

"Discrimination" is another one of those words that can be positive or negative,
depending upon how we use it. As a negative word, it's one of the worst in the
English language. As a positive one, it's very positive, and it shows the ability
to think clearly and critically in order to discriminate between two choices, for
example. We present thoughts here on both aspects of the word.

I cannot be opposed to racism, in which people are discriminated against as a result of something about which they can do nothing--their skin color--and then accept with equanimity the gross injustice of penalizing others for something else they can do nothing about--their gender. Desmond Tutu

Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind. They are very helpful, but it would be a bad mistake to suppose that one has made progress simply by having internalized their contents. Epictetus The Art of Living

Discrimination is a hellhound that gnaws at Negroes in every waking moment of their lives to remind them that the lie of their inferiority is accepted as truth in the society dominating them. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If we desire a society of peace, then we cannot achieve such a society through violence. If we desire a society without discrimination, then we must not discriminate against anyone in the process of building this society. If we desire a society that is democratic, then democracy must become a means as well as an end. Bayard Rustin

Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me
angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves
the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.

Zora Neale Hurston

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It is often easier to become outraged by injustice half a world
away than by oppression and discrimination half a block from home.

Carl T. Rowan

Discrimination due to age is one of the great tragedies of modern
life. The desire to work and be useful is what makes life worth living,
and to be told your efforts are not needed because
you are the wrong age is a crime.

Johnny Ball

If you don't have a lens that's been trained to look at how various
forms of discrimination come together, you're unlikely to develop a
set of policies that will be as inclusive as they need to be.

Kimberle Williams Crenshaw

It is obvious that discrimination exists. Women do not have the
opportunities that men do. And women that do not conform to
the system, who try to break with the accepted patterns,
are stigmatized as odd and unfeminine.

Shirley Chisholm

Education is important because, first of all, people need
to know that discrimination still exists. It is still real in
the workplace, and we should not take that for granted.

Alexis Herman

There are still traces of discrimination against race and gender,
but it's a lot different than when I started out. It just comes
quietly, slowly, sometimes so quietly that you don't realize
it until you start looking back.

Eddie Bernice Johnson

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It may be shocking to some people in this country to realize that,
without meaning to do so, they hold views in common with Hitler
when they preach discrimination against other religious,
racial or economic groups.

Henry A. Wallace

While women may look different, as some wear suits and
others wear saris, or some cover their hair while others wear
their hair loose, women need to stand together because they
all face the central point of discrimination, although the extremity
of which may be different from Kigali to Kabul.

Zainab Salbi

Seek out your brothers and sisters of other cultures and join
together in building alliances to put an end to all forms of
racial discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice. There are people
of good will of all races, religions, and nations who will
join you in common quest for the betterment of society.

Bernice King

Legal discrimination between the sexes is, in almost every instance,
founded on outmoded views of society and the pre-scientific beliefs
about psychology and physiology. It is time to sweep away these
relics of the past and set further generations free of them.

Shirley Chisholm

Defeating racism, tribalism, intolerance and all forms of discrimination
will liberate us all, victim and perpetrator alike.

Ban Ki-moon

We cannot ensure that women will be free of discrimination
in the workplace and everywhere as long as women are not
universally defended under our Constitution. As it stands
now, the equal rights of women are subject to interpretation of
law. That is a risk our mothers, sisters and daughters cannot afford.

Carolyn Maloney

In Canada, women's rights are a vital part of our effort to build
a society of real equality - not just for some, but for all Canadians.
A society in which women no longer encounter discrimination nor
are shut out from opportunities open to others.

Paul Martin

I believe that my children, who are young, will look back on the early
years of the 21st century in rather the same way I look back on the
middle of the 20th: as a time when seemingly respectable people
supported discrimination against Americans simply because those
Americans were different from themselves.

Jon Meacham

I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination
in Hollywood when I first started out. It was inconceivable to American
directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role.

Salma Hayek

During my lifetime, I realized that discrimination was not accidental,
that there were structural roots and causes to it. So if we wanted
to change women's lives, we need to deal with those root causes.

Michelle Bachelet