Ronald Burkle Quotes

I never really made a choice to live in America, so I should be aware of the social strata outside of the ones that I may live in.

It's true: one of the things that I've always thought about American society is that you never get the sort of natural politicisation of class consciousness that you would get in the United Kingdom or even in Australia.

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.

'Crash' is a movie about the racial tension that still exists in America. A lot of us pretend that we don't have preconceived notions and stereotypical ideals about each other, but we do. And we wanted to create a movie about people whose lives crash into each others' accidentally.

Urban America is like a foreign country in a sense.

There is an enormous difference between Russia and Western Europe.

I get so disenfranchised reading the news, because global borders and lines we've created are completely unnecessary. That's just another person on the other side, and it's his bad luck that he was born there and it's my good fortune that I was born here. It's all kind of illogical.

I've driven all through America and I know there are a lot of clever people between the coasts. But they have a slightly old-fashioned view of the world. Whereas New York is one of the most multicultural, multiracial, tolerant places on Earth.

If class warfare is being waged in America, my class is clearly winning.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.

In other countries, art and literature are left to a lot of shabby bums living in attics and feeding on booze and spaghetti, but in America the successful writer or picture-painter is indistinguishable from any other decent business man.

The difference between being a rich guy in America and a rich guy in Europe is that in America people look up to you for being rich.

Americans have historically been more willing than Europeans to tolerate high inequality levels if accompanied by strong economic growth and a healthy middle class.

I grew up in the Bronx. I used to remember going to all these fancy stores in Manhattan to run errands or whatever, and I felt intimidated, like they did not talk to me because I was from the Bronx. I never want anyone to be intimidated by fashion. Fashion is fun or, at least, should be.

I take much of the attacks and the criticism toward me as being very class-based, but as Americans we don't like to acknowledge that reality.

James Brown's life was really a metaphor for our inability to talk about matters like race and class in America.

There are many conflicting interests in Europe.

Class was always the domestic issue during the Vietnam War, not communism.

I've been with all walks of life... All people from all status.

Whether on guns, race, culture or feminism, there really are two Americas.

I think me and Macklemore exist in two different worlds.

Class is a big issue here. And some people get picked on more than others. I think we probably do. I mean, it doesn't help that we wear waistcoats and tweed the whole time. But there is a reverse snobbishness in England towards that sort of stuff. And I think that's one of the reasons we really enjoy America, 'cos we're classless.

It's a very complicated relationship that I have with America. I love it so much. And I also see the places where it's flawed.

A lot of the hesitancy to talk about the industry in real, concrete terms is not because of people being afraid of biting the hand that feeds them, and more about the fear that people in the middle of the country will not be interested.

A lot of the things that we think of as being racial differences are really class differences in America.