Canada Quotes

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others”, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through the those gates.

You know, I love all kinds of activism. I certainly think blacks deserve to have something whether it is affirmative action or an opportunity that should be opened up to them. But at the same time I believe that people of color are not the only poor people in America and all over the world.

And nothing embittered me, which is important, because I think ethnic people and women in this society can end up being embittered because of the lack of affirmative action, you know.

The paradox of American democracy has been that its slogan of equal opportunity has meant, often, equal opportunity to get power over your fellows.

Where the effects of past discrimination persist, society has an obligation to take positive steps to overcome the legacy of injustice. Judiciously administered affirmative action programs in education and employment can be important expressions of the drive for solidarity and participation that is at the heart of true justice. Social harm calls for social relief.

It is the policy of the state [of New York] that the American ideal of equality of opportunity requires that students ... be admitted to educational institutions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, or national origin.

We seek not just freedom, but opportunity … not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.

People who are much too sensitive to demand of cripples that they run races ask of the poor that they get up and act just like everyone else in society.

Even in 'Hollyoaks,' we were known as 'the black family' as opposed to just 'the new family.' But that's where we are in the world, I guess. It's getting better; everything's heading in the right direction, whether it be race, sex, gender.

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

We've come a long way from the days where there was state-enforced segregation. But we still have a way to go.

Affirmative action is the most important antidiscrimination technique ever instituted in the United States. It is the one tool that has had a demonstrable effect on discrimination... Affirmative action, by all statistical measures, has been the central ingredient to the creation of the black middle class.

I think that affirmative action programs can be very important.

We need to band together in solidarity. There's so many portions of our community that are under-represented. You rarely see disabled actors on movie posters or black men or Latino guys.

If I only care about equality for transgender people, then I am leaving so many people behind - if I'm not at the same time seeking to end discrimination against people of color, seeking to end discrimination against women, seeking to ensure that people of every religious background have an equal opportunity.

The basis for sustainable progress is legal protections grounded in an awareness of how identity has been used to deny opportunity.

Inequality within the deaf and hard of hearing community is something I feel really passionate about and always will do.

You cannot isolate a group and say you're not going to serve their needs.

I learned early on about the real meaning of equity and inclusion, and that when those guiding principles are not met, they can have devastating effects on individuals, families, and communities.

I'm not an advocate for disability issues. Human issues are what interest me.

Labor has a proud history of tackling discrimination and introducing important social reform.

I figure this current era of history is the one with the best chance of quality of life for a black, female, disabled, middle-aged, queer person who's most comfortable not fitting in. The odds still aren't great, mind you. But I'll take my chances with the 21st century.

You must make sure that the majority of the people are not marginalized.

I champion sensibly designed racial affirmative action, not because I have benefited from it personally - though I have. I support it because, on balance, it is conducive to the public good.

There are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action - to try to balance out those effects.