Flip Wilson Quotes

We can and must take needed action in all our programs to assure equal treatment and equal opportunity in their benefits to all of our citizens irrespective of race, color or creed.

You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, “you are free to compete with all the others”, and still justly believe that you have been completely fair. Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All our citizens must have the ability to walk through the those gates.

I suspect that it would be impossible to arrange an affirmative action program in a racially neutral way and have it successful. To ask that this be so is to demand the impossible.

I speak to you only as an American who happens to be an American Negro and one who is proud of that heritage. We ask for nothing special. We ask only that we be permitted to compete on an even basis, and if we are not worthy, then the competition shall, per se, eliminate us.

Some kind of affirmative action is important in a democracy and for economic competitiveness and national security. The Army was the first to realize that you had to have desegregation of a military to have it working properly.

Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them.

I felt that it was my mission to see to it that black talent had an opportunity to get national television exposure.

The promise of the American Dream requires that we are all provided an equal opportunity to participate in and contribute to our nation.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Now we Democrats believe that America is still the country of fair play, that we can come out of a small town or a poor neighborhood and have the same chance as anyone else, and it doesn't matter whether we are black or Hispanic, or disabled or women.

Affirmative action is an effort to include every aspect of society in the decision making.

We believe that the Committee on the Federal Judiciary can no longer be all-white. Minority groups, particularly the black lawyers of our nation, should be represented…

Where the effects of past discrimination persist, society has an obligation to take positive steps to overcome the legacy of injustice. Judiciously administered affirmative action programs in education and employment can be important expressions of the drive for solidarity and participation that is at the heart of true justice. Social harm calls for social relief.

It is the policy of the state [of New York] that the American ideal of equality of opportunity requires that students ... be admitted to educational institutions without regard to race, color, religion, creed, or national origin.

I am working for the time when unqualified Blacks, Browns and women join the unqualified men in running our government.

Hereafter in the enlistment of men in the Army... no distinction whatsoever shall be made on account of race or color

The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race

We [Chicago] are known as the city that works. You gotta make sure it works for everybody and not just a few.

By 2000, the last traces if racial and religious discrimination will have disappeared [from New York City].

I think it's worth putting energy into affirmative action in terms of having diversity in positions of power because the door was shut for so long.

When I do my hiring in the United States Senate, I look at issues of diversity.

There are so many more women and men who deserve opportunities. People of color. Period.

When I started my pathway, black players were often considered to be good wingers, good players, but not captain or management material. It has changed since then, which is pleasing, but we still have so far to go.

I know our country can remain forward-thinking by ensuring young women and minorities are given equal opportunity.

Everyone in the street where I grew up was given the same message: You can be anything; you can do anything. That wasn't extraordinary; that was ordinary for us. My folks didn't believe in black exceptionalism. There's nothing exceptional about 'You can have that, too' - except when it comes to justice. You can't have that.