Mackenzie Davis Quotes

I was a very poor young black boy in New Orleans, just a face without a name, swimming in a sea of poverty trying to survive.

The South politician preaches to the poor white man, "You got more than the blacks, don't complain. You're better than them, you been born with white skin," they explain. And the Negro's name Is used, it is plain, For the politician's gain, As he rises to fame And the poor white remains On the caboose of the train; But it ain't him to blame -- He's only a pawn in their game.

The story of rural India is a lack of empowerment: perceived impotence. Villagers are being constantly threatened by an authority. The Bolero symbolizes empowerment.

If the privileged in society can use that privilege to privilege others, then the consequences can be tremendous.

Partly, identity politics is a result of economic failure.

In my life, I've been able to really examine society in a way most people who aren't outsiders don't get a chance to do.

People who have no stake in society are the least likely to have respect for it.

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

I never thought of being disadvantaged.

The rich stick together; the poor and the marginalised are thrown together.

Class, race, sexuality, gender and all other categories by which we categorize and dismiss each other need to be excavated from the inside.

I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result.

As a Londoner I was able to see how the world of power and money cast its shadow on those who failed.

Capitalism and democracy are the opposite of each other. Capitalism is a system that guarantees that a few are going to do very well, and everybody else is going to serve the few. Democracy means everybody has a seat at the table. Everybody.

In Paris, where I live, the inner neighborhoods are only available to the white elite. The poor and dispossessed are shuffled out to suburbs and never seen.

Status in itself is criminal for those with the means to move, and the means to weave communion between people.

America is a fundamentally good country. We have good people with good values who want to do the right thing. But the structures of power that exist are working to their own ends to extend their capability at the expense of the freedom of all publics.

I've spent my career trying to help people without connections understand what's going on so that they have a chance of getting a fair shake from the connected and the powerful.

There are people in whole parts of our cities who are being totally left behind and disregarded. They are unheard. They are told they are unneeded by this economy. And that extreme poverty breeds conditions for extreme violence.

The feeling of being an underdog, not belonging, is very much me. You harbour a little feeling of resentment towards the 'upper dog'.

I would not say that George Bush doesn't care about people at all. I think that his loyalties are to the upper class.

The fight still isn't people of colour versus white. It's the people versus the system built to keep us down. That's the first line of the Constitution. And the system is manmade but is made of no man. Everyone, regardless of class, creed, culture and ethnicity can fight the system and help to break it down.

I think there's an element where people get very comfortable in their ghetto. Which is fair enough.

I love playing women at the far ends of the social scale. I've done it all my life; that's where my ability lies.

Nowadays nothing but money counts: a fortune brings honors, friendships; the poor man everywhere lies low.