Gail Bradbrook Quotes

Oppression works in such a way that it holds every person responsible for the acts of any wrongdoer of the oppressed group.

Sometimes, poor people don't smell too good, so love can have no nose.

Telly never has any smart, amusing intellectuals living on a council estate.

When you exist in the centre of a debate, as a topic, a hypothesis - otherised and stigmatised - you become the prop in a proposition.

I don't think anybody cares about unwed mothers unless they're black or poor. The question is not morality, the question is money. That's what we're upset about.

Rebellion is the necessary result of injustice. It may not always achieve its purpose, or be intended to do so, but a conviction of injustice endured must precede articulate rebellion. Nor is it always certain that injustice will be followed by rebellion – it would be very much better for the world if this was the case. But where the victims of aggression or custom are ignorant and disunited, the opportunities for reasoned and effective revolt are practically reduced to nothing…

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.

Eccentricity is usually owned by middle-class and upper-class people. If you are working class and eccentric, then you're just mad.

Both racism and homophobia come from a sense of the presumed and the unknown.

Men continue to misinterpret the second-rate status of women as implying a privileged status for themselves; heterosexuals think the same way about homosexuals; gentiles about Jews; whites about blacks; haves about have-nots.

At drama school, a casting director asked the class to walk round the room one at a time, and we had to imagine who they might be. The two before me were described as a doctor and a businessman, but when it came to me, they said homeless person. That was when I thought I'd better do something about my appearance!

I used to live in a street in Bristol which was, depending on your tabloid of choice, either Britain's most dangerous street or a moral cesspit. People made judgments about me on where I lived. It affected me - it affected my life chances. That is going on today with people in social housing. That, to me, isn't acceptable.

Our entire lives, we're inundated with media and messaging that tells us that to be incarcerated is to be criminal and to be criminal is to be a bad person.

I am living in this world, and if this world already has a certain prejudice of me and an idea of me, then it's really hard for me to go through it.

I've had tweets questioning whether I really did go to university because surely I would have lost my accent if I did; a letter suggesting, very politely, that I get correction therapy; and an email saying I should get back to my council estate and leave the serious work to the clever folk.

There is the idea that there's a section of society, these working-class tradesmen, are driving around and they all think the same. Everybody who has tools in their vehicle have all the exact same thoughts: it's incredibly patronising isn't it?

People who are labeled as disrespectful do not get the same opportunities afforded to those who are labeled as respectful.

Sexism and racism and homophobia and classism are so naturalized. All these stereotypes make people think it's just normal that straight white men are getting all the breaks.

I reckoned my accent and class would count against me; I didn't see actresses as being working-class.

I know people think I'm a stupid little street queen out there begging for change cause there's nothing else she knows how to do.

I remember once at the end of a BBC job interview the manager said to me: 'I didn't realise people like you were clever.' I don't think he was being intentionally nasty. At that time in the BBC he was surrounded by clones of himself, give or take some facial hair and glasses.

I've gotten stopped for reckless eyeballing, for staring too hard. These officers think they're Tarzan and this is a jungle, that all the animals need to be tamed.

We're oppressed, I think, you know there's only 5 per cent of the world's population who are ginger? So it's a tough time for us gingers.

The majority of the roles I've played are women who have been either impoverished or subjugated in some way. So while I've been fortunate enough to have success because these roles exist, they are stereotypical roles.

By definition, of course, we believe the person with a stigma is not quite human. On this assumption we exercise varieties of discrimination, through which we effectively, if often unthinkingly, reduce his life chances.