Michael Leunig Quotes

We live in a very dysfunctional society, and this is a very, very dysfunctional Administration.

I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame.

Poverty is not a trait of character. It is created anew in each generation but not by heredity, by circumstances.

The biggest problem is that the rich people paying the bills do not share the same goals as the poor people they are trying to help. The wealthy have weak incentives to get the right amount of the right thing to those who need it; the poor are in no position to complain if they don’t.

Poverty is an artificial imposition on a human being.

Inequality saps the will to conceive of ambitious solution to large collective problems, because those problems [to the have’s] no longer seem very collective. Inequality undermines democracy/

You have to know the forces that are against you and that are trying to break you down. We talk about the problems facing the black community: the decimation of the black family; the mass incarceration of the black man; we're talking about the brutality against black people from the police. The educational system.

We must acknowledge that issues like systemic racism, economic inequality, and the achievement gap are the result of manmade policies.

Being in a first-world country, it's like we have a first-row seat to witnessing humanity, but we're not really witnessing anything. Despite all the new technological tools we've been given, we're still powerless, watching everything happen like it's a theatrical performance.

People who feel alienated have little trust in the institutions of our society. This adds to the wider sense of disaffection and makes it more difficult for our politics to work.

The second Trump won, I felt super-powerless and I thought, 'Oh my God, no one's looking out for us.'

Tonight the Negro knows from his radio and television that a Congo native can be a locomotive engineer, but in Jackson [Mississippi] he cannot even drive a garbage truck.

One must denounce the economic, financial, and social mechanisms and structures that are manipulated by the rich and powerful for their own benefit at the expense of the poor

The hopes of the Republic cannot forever tolerate either undeserved poverty or self-serving wealth.

We have one Black man as President; we have one million Black men in prison.

We ought to remain skeptical of our own institutions.

You’ve got a reputation and it stinks….Since Detroit is more than 80 percent Black, it can’t be the white man’s fault. It’s not what he’s doing to you. It’s what you’re not doing.

It has been the purpose of the ruling class, apparently, to build new barriers between themselves and the common people, rather than tear away any of those already existing. I think no one can understand the actual condition of the mass of whites in Georgia and the Carolinas, except by some daily contact with them. The injustice done to three fourths of them was hardly less than that done to all the blacks.... Nine of every ten white men in South Carolina had almost as little to do with even State affairs as the negroes had.

What we call real estate--the solid ground to build a house on--is the broad foundation on which nearly all the guilt of this world rests.

These reforms will not be popular with everybody—especially those who are doing just fine under the present system.

The fact that policies often fail for no good reason is annoying but less depressing than the view that it is a big conspiracy against the poor… Name your favorite enemy… capitalism, corruption … Our view is easier. You think hard about the problems and you can solve them.

Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences—deep, corrosive, obstinate differences—radiating painful roots into the community and into the family, and the nature of the individual. These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice.

The Negro is going to be relegated to the menial jobs and will not get his promotions because the competition is too tough.

And if you want to make many of our black leaders angry, just tell them that racism is not the number problem that black Americans face.

Ben Carson was appointed to be the HUD secretary. He knows nothing about the mission of HUD. He doesn't care about people in public housing. He believes that if you are poor, it is your own fault. And he doesn't know the difference between an immigrant and a slave.