Spencer Paysinger Quotes

If we grow up in these communities where we have gangs, well, what do you think we're going to belong to? That's what happened to me and what's still happening to hundreds of thousands of other individuals.

I grew up in a very nice house in Houston, went to private school all my life and I've never even been to the 'hood. Not that there's anything wrong with the 'hood.

In my hood, I was always with the older guys.

We tax the people in Watts to send the children of Beverly Hills to college.

It's easy to look at South Central and say, 'That's a bad place,' and it's easy to look at Beverly Hills and say, 'It will be a cakewalk,' but it just exposed me to a different set of problems. Both sides relate to each other more than they think.

Having our own children in good schools does not inure us from the ill-effect of others having theirs in poor schools. Having great roads within our gated homes and offices does not help when our fancy cars spill out on to poor public roads.

The thing that really struck me when I went to junior high was class. I grew up on a pretty poor street, but the school district I was in included some fine neighborhoods - so I got to know a couple of the kids from those places and went to their houses and experienced such culture shock.

When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.

I was never a 'bad' kid, but I did get into minor juvenile trouble. Look, I grew up in Brooklyn. This was the '60s, and the neighborhood was rapidly changing and not without its problems. All the kids of the neighborhood 'did their thing,' breaking windows and the like. I was no different.

I spend a fair bit of time in Los Angeles, and there is much I love about the place - the weather, the food, the beaches and the golf. And a few things I don't. Like the way an enormous number of mentally ill people seem to be forced to live on the streets with little or nothing in the way of government assistance.

I think people tend to live, whether they like it or not, influenced by what's next door to them.

The reality in the neighborhood that I live in is: if I don't constantly reconcile what I have against what other people don't, either I need to leave and be around other people who have what I have, or I'm constantly engaged in this kind of dynamic flow of opportunity and sharing.

I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire.

We weren't wealthy but we definitely weren't poor. We were incredibly rich because there was a wonderful community in Shepherd's Bush, where I grew up. All my friends were into villainy and crime.

The organization and constant onward sweep of this movement exemplifies the resentment of the many toward the selfishness, greed and the neglect of the few.

To be clear, the gap between the have gots and the have nots is widening. In this most multicultural, multiracial, multiethnic America ever, that concerns me.

What people don't understand is joining a gang ain't bad, it's cool, it's fine. When you in the hood, joining a gang it's cool because all your friends are in the gang, all your family's in the gang. We're not just killing people every night, we're just hanging out, having a good time.

My son is so fortunate, you know. He's always going to have food. Yes, my children are going to be privileged, but that's why it's so important for them to see different realities and to travel, and they do already.

I was a camp counselor for kids whose moms were on welfare, unfortunately, and right across the camp was the best, most pristine and preppy camp in the universe.

It was a strike against me that I didn't wear baggy jeans and jerseys and that I never hustled, never sold drugs.

All power is fast getting into the hands of the very lowest people.

There are but two families in the world … The haves and the have-nots.

The public education system works for children of families like mine but it does not work for the children of families who I represent …

The top 1 percent have the best houses, the best educations, the best doctors, and the best lifestyles, but there is one thing that money doesn’t seem to have bought: an understanding that their fate is bound up with how the other 99 percent live. Throughout history, this is something that the top 1 percent eventually do learn. Too late.

There are people with no high school education who are poor. but there are also university graduates on food bank lines. There are people who are poor because they have made bad choices, gotten addicted to drugs, burned bridges with friends and family — and then there are people who have never taken a drug in their lives, who have huge social networks, and who still can’t make ends meet.