Henry Louis Gates Jr. Quotes

The perennial conviction that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded with a more comfortable present and a stronger future for their children faces assault from just about every direction. That great enemy of democratic capitalism, economic inequality, is real and growing.

I was poor. When you're poor you work, and when you're rich you expect somebody to hand it to you. So I think being reasonably poor is very good for people.

I'm tired of people on trust funds telling people on food stamps how to live.

If you are poor today, you will always be poor. Only the rich now acquire riches.

This society cannot go forward, the way we have been going forward, where the gap between the rich and the poor keeps growing.

As long as we look to legislation to cure poverty or to abolish special privilege we are going to see poverty spread and special privilege grow.

Inequality is an inevitable product of capitalist activity, and expanding equality of opportunity only increases it—because some individuals and communities are simply better able than others to exploit the opportunities for development and advancement that capitalism affords.

Today, if you were raised poor, you're just as likely to stay poor as you were 50 years ago.

I could never understand why our lives felt like a struggle while those living off government largesse enjoyed trinkets that I only dreamed about.

When people listen to Jay-Z, they're working all day or trying to work and pay their bills, and what they hear is someone who's free. Who doesn't have to worry about the electricity. But all we're taught is that those who are rich deserve to be rich because they worked harder than the rest of us, or they're smarter.

For all the chatter that Britain has moved beyond class, recent studies have found that it determines the life chances of British people more today than at any point since the Second World War... A child born into a rich family in Britain will almost certainly live and die rich, while a child born into a poor family will almost certainly live and die poor.

The chasm between rich and poor is becoming larger, and I think it's interesting terrain to talk about and expose.

Economic chasm between people is something that is of interest to me. And something that I used to write about even as a child. It's something I've revisited a few times in my writings.

Aspiration, it seems, is in danger of becoming the preserve of the wealthy.

Workers in decent jobs view the economy as unjust if they or their children have virtually no chance of climbing to a higher rung in the socioeconomic ladder.

Income inequality is troubling because, among other things, it means that many people in our society don't have the opportunities to advance themselves.

Economic issues are a subset of social justice. Social justice is unimaginable without economic justice. Isn't that obvious?

There's great disparity between who goes to college and who goes to jail. Who lives long and who dies prematurely, is the defining issue of our time. And I submit to you, there's a significant race dimension, it is basically class-driven.

At the end of the day, we have an economy that works for the rich by cheating the poor, and unequal schools are the result of that, not the cause.

There was a time in my life when I was going in and out of houses that were extraordinarily different - from a working-class terrace in Northampton to the homes of friends who were really very wealthy. It was quite an odd position to be in, I realise looking back, and quite a nice one.

We know that in our free market economy some will prosper more than others. What we don't accept is the idea that some folks won't even get a chance.

What many economists fail to understand is that poor people are no less concerned about improving their lot and that of their children than rich people are.

It's not my fault that there is this gap between rich and poor, it is the fault of governments. I want a different world. One where I don't wake up thinking I'm so lucky to be able to feed my daughter.

I don't mind the rich getting richer, but the poor shouldn't be getting poorer, and there should be more people moving into the middle class.

The forces in a capitalist society, if left unchecked, tend to make the rich richer and the poor poorer.