William Cosby Quotes

African-Americans now 45 percent poverty in the inner cities. The education is a disaster. Jobs are essentially nonexistent.

There is no kind of harassment that a man may not inflict on a woman with impunity in civilized societies.

Around 80% of Liberians are unemployed and only half of all children go to primary school. Just one in 20 go on to secondary school. Young children are on the streets instead of in the classrooms. We are not giving them the opportunity to learn and they will struggle to get jobs when they grow up.

As we lose manufacturing jobs across the country, the burden falls disproportionately on Black Americans.

Rape committed on a female slave is an offense not recognized by law

As long as the working-people fold hands and pray the gods in Washington to give them work, so long they will not get it. So long as they tramp the streets, whose stones they lay, whose filth they clean, whose sewers they dig, yet upon which they must not stand too long lest the policeman bid them "move on"; as long as they go from factory to factory, begging for the opportunity to be a slave, receiving the insults of bosses and foremen, getting the old "no," the old shake of the head, in these factories they built, whose machines they wrought; so long as they consent to herd like cattle, in the cities, driven year after year, more and more, off the mortgaged land, the land they cleared, fertilized, cultivated, rendered of value; so long as they stand shivering, gazing thro' plate glass windows at overcoats, which they made, but cannot buy, starving in the midst of food they produced but cannot have; so long as they continue to do these things vaguely relying upon some power outside themselves, be it god, or priest, or politician, or employer, or charitable society, to remedy matters, so long deliverance will be delayed.

The Negro family, battered and harassed by discrimination, injustice, and uprooting, is in the deepest trouble. While many young Negroes are moving ahead to unprecedented levels of achievement, many more are falling further and further behind.

Men who have been raised violently have every reason to believe it is appropriate for them to control others through violence; they feel no compunction over being violent to women, children, and one another.

The Middle East has the highest unemployment percentage of any region in the world we have the largest youth cohort of history coming into the market place that frustration does translate into the political sphere when people are hungry and without jobs.

Most male victims of violence are the victims of other men's violence. So that's something that both women and men have in common. We are both victims of men's violence.

I have not personally suffered from the deprivations, the bitterness and sorrow which bring so many men and women to a realisation of social injustice.

A lot of joblessness in the black community doesn't seem to be reachable through fiscal and monetary policies. People have not been drawn into the labor market even during periods of economic recovery.

The Negro claims, as a matter of simple justice, his full share in America's economic and social life. He sees adequate employment opportunities as a chief means of attaining this goal

There's nothing more unfair than a guy that doesn't have a job.

We can't offer young blacks a job at Wendy's or McDonald's as an alternative to selling crack.

Mighty causes are calling us—the freeing of women, the training of children, the putting down of hate and murder and poverty—all these and more. But they will call us with voices that mean work and sacrifice and death

The kind of hope I grew up with is missing in today's ghetto youth because of a breakdown in family life. It has its roots in slavery when often the father of the family was uprooted and sold down the river. The son would grow up and get married and, when he was unable to get a job because there were not jobs for a black man, he would get embarrassed that he could not support his family and walk out thinking, "my mother did it alone and my wife is no better." Well, that went on generation after generation, and it's no better today. There still are no jobs and welfare encourages the man to leave the family. One of the greatest problems facing the country is how to reconcile the young ghetto dweller with the rest of America. We have a large problem of ignorance, lack of opportunity, and divided families. I worry about how we are going to solve it. It's not just trying to persuade people to be nice and understanding. I've been as angry as anyone else. But most people define the end of anger as when you become well-off. I think as we resolve the breakdown of the black family, caused by slavery and continued by welfare, the problem will come closer to its solution

What is harm for some women isn’t harm for another. Some women accept beatings and insults as a joke, while others do not.

A host of unemployed citizens face the grim problem of existence, and an equally great number toil with little return. Only a foolish optimist can deny the dark realities of the moment.

The outstanding faults of the economic society in which we live are its failure to provide for full employment and its arbitrary and inequitable distribution of wealth and incomes.

The ignorant Southerner hates the Negro, the workingmen fear his competition, the money-makers wish to use him as a laborer, some of the educated see a menace in his upward development, while others—usually the sons of the masters—wish to help him to rise. National opinion has enabled this last class to maintain the Negro common schools, and to protect the Negro partially in property, life, and limb.

White Man’s Road Thru Black Man’s Home!

The trend of psychology, education, anthropology, and social science is toward environmentalism in the explanation of group differences, which means that the racial beliefs which defended caste are being torn away. It also means, by implication, that the white majority group in power is accused of being the cause of the Negro's deficiencies and unhappiness.

Most poor people earn more than minimum wage when they are working; their problem is not low wages. The problem comes when they are not working.

We once had a society stratified by bloodlines, in which the Protestant Establishment was in one class, immigrants were in another and African-Americans were in another. Now we live in a society stratified by education. In many ways this system is more fair, but as the information economy matures, we are learning it comes with its own brutal barriers to opportunity and ascent.