Chris Gardner Quotes

As a black woman, I have no particular interest in maintaining the status quo. Why would I? The status quo is harmful; the status quo is significantly racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other things that I think need to change.

If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim.

There are forms of oppression and domination which become invisible - the new normal.

I think what we forget is that everybody loses when we keep unnecessary privilege. The cost to society overall is much greater.

What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

It would be a tragic mistake for us out here to imagine that Bush represents the hearts and the minds of the majority of your countrymen. Many of your black and other compatriots must be just as anguished as we are.

It's incredibly hard out there for women of color.

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.

The idea that you have to pursue greatness... it's up to you; it's your life.

My race and sex had a great deal more to do with what people believed I could do than with what I actually could do.

You only have one go at life, which is thrilling. Only you can make yourself into who you want to be. Don't blame anybody else. You are entitled to free fresh air, and that's it. Do the rest yourself.

If I don't see myself as a victim, then I'm not a victim.

No one will improve your lot if you do not yourself.

I hear people say it affected your self-esteem to be segregated. It never affected mine.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

It is an absolute impossibility in this society to reversely sexually objectify heterosexual men, just as it is impossible for a poor person of color to be a racist. Such extreme prejudice must be accompanied by the power of society’s approval and legislation. While women and poor people of color may become intolerant, personally abusive, even hateful, they do not have enough power to be racist or sexist.

Dog whistles about women who want handouts are simply an acceptable way to say that women are not worth as much as the men who must dominate the government. At the heart of Movement Conservatism is the conviction that America belongs to elite men alone.

That was a sin: to consider yourself victimized or not able to control your destiny or your fate - that was the one cardinal sin in our community.

I love how when I say the world is still run by men, and sometimes I say the world is still run by white men, people gasp as if that's news. That's not news. That's obvious.

I have been really furious about the constant charges being lobbed against me about identity politics that, by the way, are only lobbed against women and candidates of color.

If you're unhappy with your circumstances, then change them. Don't blame the government or your boss or the guy down the street who's better looking than you (exceptions include Hugh Jackman and George Clooney). Just take some Pepto-Bismol and be a man (or woman, for all of you bullish feminists).

A lot of times, when you have a story of minorities in America, it's always this super, oppositional thing. It's segregation, it's the racism, and those are the hard facts of the story.

America is built on the labors of the oppressed.

I am not a victim. I do not blame anyone for the circumstances of my life.

I don't do the victim mode. I don't do blame. I can't bear that.