Abdellah Boussouf Quotes

How could I love a faith that makes me a second class citizen?

As I often say, we have come a long way from the days of slavery, but in 2014, discrimination and inequality still saturate our society in modern ways. Though racism may be less blatant now in many cases, its existence is undeniable.

Race is not particularly interesting to me. Power is. Who has power and who doesn't. Slavery interests me because it's an incredible violation that has not stopped. It's necessary to talk about that. Race is a diversion.

If he presents himself to vote, he runs a risk to his life. Oppressed, he can complain, but if he finds only whites among his judges… His son is excluded from the school where the descendants of Europeans come to be instructed. In theaters he cannot buy for the price of gold the right to be placed at the side of one who was his master; in hospitals he lies apart. The black is permitted to beseech the same God as whites, but not to pray to him at the same alter.

Keeping people on the margins of cultural, social and political life constitutes in many nations one of the most glaring injustices of our time.

I hate systemic oppression in America.

The way we imagine discrimination or disempowerment often is more complicated for people who are subjected to multiple forms of exclusion. The good news is that intersectionality provides us a way to see it.

Our family were outsiders, and I've always had a sense of the outsider, the underdog, and a strong sense of justice towards people who are excluded.

Unrestrained liberalism only makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker and excludes the most excluded.

We're conditioned in this country to believe that if there's a problem, the black man is usually the culprit.

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.

I mean, the unfair treatment of women and black people and Indians and other groups, that's real. Mistreatment of other people because 'I'm better than you are' is such a sad part of the world.

I'm tired of being treated like a second-class citizen.

I also know that while I am black I am a human being, and therefore I have the right to go into any public place. White people didn't know that. Every time I tried to go into a place they stopped me.

I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.

If I were white, I'd get less criticism.

Sometimes black people really want to hold onto our oppression - 'This is ours! This belongs to us.' You can't just talk about equality for somebody else. Let's pass it on. Let's pass it on to somebody else. At the end of the day, it is all about inequality.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

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.

There's no such thing as second class citizenship. That's like telling me you can be a little bit pregnant.

Poor men's reasons are not heard.

I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.

I think the world of 'District 9' has a lot of race and oppression-based ideas that I would still like to explore in that world.

Remember, social progress only happens when those in society's privileged classes choose to give up their status.

Broader social concerns within Muslim communities, such as discrimination, integration or socio-economic disadvantages, should be treated distinctively and not as part of counterterrorism agenda, which has been counter-productive.