Every single person in this world is a minority in one way or another. It just depends on how you slice the pie.
Interpretation
Everyone belongs to a minority group in some form, highlighting the diversity of human experience.
This quote by Dustin Lance Black emphasizes that each individual possesses unique characteristics or experiences that make them part of a minority. It invites reflection on the varied aspects of identity and the importance of recognizing and valuing diversity rather than overlooking it. The phrase 'how you slice the pie' suggests that the perspective we choose to adopt can reveal different facets of a person's identity, encouraging an inclusive view of society.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about human rights to highlight the importance of recognizing individual experiences.
If Harvey [Milk] had not been taken from us 30 years ago, I think he would want me to say to all the gay and lesbian kids out there tonight who have been told they are less than by the churches, by the government, by their families, that you are beautiful, wonderful creatures of value, and that no matter what anyone tells you, God does love you and that very soon, I promise you, you will have equal rights, federally, across this great nation of ours.
How amazing is it that when a young gay or lesbian person has their first crush, no matter where they live in the country, they can imagine that all the way to marriage? When I first experienced a crush, in Texas, there was maybe a second of butterflies that were then dammed in by the fear of what that meant.
My mom was paralyzed from polio at the age of 2, abandoned by her husband, left with a 2-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 10-year-old, and so, we were raising her as much as she was raising us.
I wrote 'Milk' for me. I wrote it for the younger version of me that had no clue that there are people who'd ever fought for my rights.
Gay and lesbian people want to love and be loved. Some of us want to get married. Some want to have and build families. We want our kids to have their lives be a little bit better than what we've had.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions is that this is somehow a stranger who is carrying your child. And this is absolutely not true. Your surrogate becomes one of your best friends and a member of your family.
Alas,we who wanted kindness, could not be kind ourselves.
The totalitarian world produces backwardness because it does such violence to the spirit, thwarting the human impulse to create, to enjoy, to worship.
It is necessary, in this world, to be made of harder stuff than one's environment.
We establish a connection with the unknown through the act of giving something and, paradoxically, the act of destroying something. That is what is behind sacrifice. What you offer and what you destroy, it is that surplus which is life itself.
No white American ever thinks that any other race is wholly civilized until he wears the white man’s clothes, eats the white man’s food, speaks the white man’s language, and professes the white man’s religion.
Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
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