We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a vision for a future America where diverse racial and social groups coexist with mutual respect and equality.
Shirley Chisholm highlights an aspirational future for the United States, emphasizing the potential for a multicultural society where individuals from different racial and social backgrounds can maintain their unique identities while also interacting on equal footing. This vision underscores the importance of respect and equity in social, economic, and political spheres, suggesting that true unity can be achieved through acceptance and collaboration among diverse groups.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about racial equality and coexistence.
I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
I stand before you today to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates simply because he is not white or because she is not a male.
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'
I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.
Of course laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.
I want history to remember me... not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.
When policymakers, financiers and scientists describe the world decades from now, in the throes of climatic changes that we now only model, they emphasize what might be lost.
We bury our seeds and wait, _x000D_ Winter blocks the road, _x000D_ Flowers are taken prisoner underground, _x000D_ But then green justice tenders a spear
I hope something happens. I'm restless as the devil and have a horror of getting fat or falling in love and growing domestic.
We believe it is comprehensive international sanctions against the white regime that will save us from the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of South Africans, black and white.
Many say our world is at a tipping point. If we do not act together, if we do not act responsibly, if we do not act now, we risk slipping into a cycle of poverty, degradation, and despair.
After every war, there was a significant change in the music, and I can understand how that happened. If you participate in protecting the country, you think you can be part of it, but you come back home and it's worse than ever.
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