437 Quotes About Inequality

I’ve been a lawyer in Detroit for a lot of years. I’ve seen the system up close and personal. I’ve seen the charging differences, the sentencing differences, blacks in white towns harassed and pulled over for the crime of simply being there and being black.

Yes, he was a good man, but he was also a black man. And when you’re black, being good isn’t always enough.”“No, sweetheart, it isn’t. A black man walks a different line, a tightrope. Sometimes that line is hard to see. That seems to be what happened here.

But, he’s the white prosecutor, honey. What does he know about being black in America? What does he know about being pulled over for driving while black? What does he know about living with discrimination every day of your life or being a descendant of slaves? Has he ever experienced discrimination? Has he lost a loved one to senseless violence? Can he hear gunshots from a lounge chair on the front porch of his fancy-ass home?

If you and Marcus were white, maybe the country is just as pissed as you are. But knowing that it’s wrong doesn’t make it any less true.

Until cops stop treating blacks differently than whites, we’re going to have problems.

Aren’t cops trained to be patient, to use their weapons as a last resort?”“But this was a white cop, Sarah. And to a white cop, a black man and a gun don’t mix. Do you understand where I’m coming from?

We must try to see the world through a black person’s eyes, see hard truths and not unfairly judge those who deliver them. We need to see people—real people—not the stereotypes handed down by previous generations.

I’m just thinking. I guess I’m a little worried about our current political climate. The country, the state, and even the city . . . we are very divided, maybe more divided than any time in recent history. The silent underbelly of racist attitudes has become far more emboldened.

It is not fun to be pulled over by a police officer. We’re upset or anxious when we’re pulled over by the police. We often know what we did wrong and await the penalty, or we wonder what we did wrong and await the explanation. But, do we expect to be manhandled or abused by the officer? Do we fear that he might kill us? For black people, especially black men, those fears are too frequently an unfortunate reality.