Florynce Kennedy Quotes

Those who suffer are not those at the top, but are the less privileged members of society.

The sharecropper may lower his eyes, but not because he's less of a man. That's just a condition of society that such things exist.

We want no black Ireland in America. We want no aggrieved class in America.

America is like a melting pot. The people at the bottom get burned, and the scum floats to the top.

People have almost been lulled into complacency because there are no signs over the water fountains. But the signs have been in the policies. There's still housing discrimination and wage discrimination.

The United States of America is a nation where people are not united because of those three glaring frailties: racism, injustices and inequities.

I just think the most difficult thing to displace is privilege.

It's usually human drama that carries with it issues of race or class that attracts me. That was certainly the case with 'No Crossover.'

It is bad enough to be white and poor; it is worse still to be black, or brown, and female, and young, and poor. Simply said, race makes class hurt more.

I'm the result of upbringing, class, race, gender, social prejudices, and economics. So I'm a victim again. A result.

It's funny how people who ain't never been down there can think that America is so fair and that we should be alright. It's funny that the people who have their foot on our neck are telling us, 'Get up. What's wrong with you?'

People can't stand it when you deal with issues of race and class, and also sometimes the church, and you give a perspective that flushes out hypocrisy.

Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.

If we think we have ours and don't owe any time or money or effort to help those left behind, then we are a part of the problem rather than the solution to the fraying social fabric that threatens all Americans.

Poor men's reasons are not heard.

The fight still isn't people of colour versus white. It's the people versus the system built to keep us down. That's the first line of the Constitution. And the system is manmade but is made of no man. Everyone, regardless of class, creed, culture and ethnicity can fight the system and help to break it down.

Remember, social progress only happens when those in society's privileged classes choose to give up their status.

Let him who expects one class of society to prosper in the highest degree, while the other is in distress, try whether one side; of the face can smile while the other is pinched.

Inequality causes problems by creating fissures in societies, leaving those at the bottom feeling marginalized or disenfranchised.

White middle- and upper-class men have a longer journey to go than many people.

The margins don't get erased by simply insisting that the powers-that-be erase them.

If the Negroes are to remain forever removed from the producing atmosphere, and the present discrimination continues, there will be nothing left for them to do.

Allow not the abject to rule over and dominate them who are noble and worthy of honour, and suffer not the high-minded to be at the mercy of the contemptible and worthless, for this is what We observed upon Our arrival in the City (Constantinople), and to it We bear witness. We found among its inhabitants some who were possessed of an affluent fortune and lived in the midst of excessive riches, whilst others were in dire want and abject poverty. This ill beseemeth thy sovereignty, and is unworthy of thy rank…. strive thou to rule with equity among men

Laws are only words written on paper, words that change on society's whim and are interpreted differently daily by politicians, lawyers, judges, and policemen. Anyone who believes that all laws should always be obeyed would have made a fine slave catcher. Anyone who believes that all laws are applied equally, despite race, religion, or economic status, is a fool.

Minorities…are almost always in the right.