Reggie Fils-Aime Quotes

Being Black and poor is, I think, radically different from being anything else and poor. Poor, to most Blacks, is a state of mind. Those who accept it are poor; those who struggle are middle class.

I was not from a middle-class family at all. I did not have middle-class possessions and what have you. But I had middle-class parents who gave me what was needed to survive in society.

My dad's family were pretty working class, actually.

I come from the lower middle class, originally. We didn't have anything.

I was brought up on a council estate. I know what it's like to be poor.

I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles.

When I was young, I grew up in a family of working-class people. Not just my parents, but my extended family, as well.

'Be faithful to your roots' is the liberal version of 'Stay in your ghetto.'

If you asked anybody in my family, they would have very stridently proclaimed themselves middle class. My mother and father were separated, so he doesn't count.

I don't come from a privileged background.

It's hard being black. You ever been black? I was black once - when I was poor.

Very few people can afford to be poor.

I come from a working-class background in Queens, New York.

Money can't buy poverty.

The goatherds were the poorest people of Spain. Probably, they were the richest.

I'm from a lower middle class background; all my family were immigrants.

I'm used to being in the minority. I'm a left-handed gay Jew. I've never felt, automatically, a member of any majority.

I grew up with no money. No money. I always struggled and had the sense that there was this other class of people who went to college - this was when I was younger.

I'm working class, my family was working class, and we have struggled the same way our neighbors here in San Francisco have struggled.

A child's geographic location, race or parent's income level should not predetermine their life's course and it's up to us to see that they don't.

Growing up in a particular neighborhood, growing up in a working-class family, not having much money, all of those things fire you and can give you an edge, can give you an anger.

My background is that I came from a middle class family, and I think those values stay where ever you go.

People like me who grew up in a working-class town, who don't have a college education, you don't usually hear from us.

Those born into poverty or on the margins of society require our extra support to realize their dreams.

I don't come from money.