Kenny Troutt Quotes

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

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.

Why are some people bullied? Because they are different. How? It doesn't matter.

People used to feel oddly empowered to tell me all the reasons I couldn't win. Because I was a woman. Because I was a lesbian. Because I was from the West Side of Manhattan.

I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent.

The poor are discussed as this homogeneous mash, like porridge. The idea that they might be individuals, and be where they are for very different, diverse reasons, again seems to escape some people.

I was labeled a troublemaker, my mom an unfit mother, and I was not welcome anywhere.

Italians are a riffraff of desperate scoundrels, ex-convicts and jailbirds.

With any sort of minority, issues of ostracization or misrepresentation are clearly rampant. It's just so deeply rooted in our culture, and there are so many levels that it trickles down from.

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.

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

Yet it is true—skin can mean a great deal. Mine means that any man may strike me in a public place and never fear the consequences. It means that my friends do not always like to be seen with me in the street. It means that no matter how many books I read, or languages I master, I will never be anything but a curiosity—like a talking pig or a mathematical horse.

If you belong to the underclass, you are already guilty.

Even as considering African-Americans, immigrants and other groups who may be marginalized in different ways, American Muslims are still one of the most marginalized groups. Overt prejudice is probably more acceptable toward American Muslims than any other single group in the U.S. There is still a lot of policies in place that are incredibly effective that don't show any signs of eroding. So, I don't want to overstate the optimism but I think things are headed gradually in the right direction. Just because of the distance between us and 9/11.

I think most gypsies all over the world are used to being not really welcome and always on the run, expecting people to not like them and to be critical.

I thought Christians were walking idiots.

We used to say poor people had lousy genes. Then we decided that wasn't OK, but we transferred the prejudice to upbringing. We said, 'You were neglected as a child, so you'll never make it.' That's just as pernicious.

There's still a great deal of bias about homosexuality.

What characterizes a member of a minority group is that he is forced to see himself as both exceptional and insignificant, marvelous and awful, good and evil.

We all deal with being unfairly judged.

I became stereotyped.

People who don't fit the mold are treated differently than those who do.

People tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity.

Can anything good come of a backward way of thinking like judging someone based on skin color? No way.

I'm working class, and want people to know I'm not unintelligent and all the other cliches that come with it.