This is a country that was founded on racism. It was built on racism. It still continues to thrive through wealth disparity, and housing disparity is all built on the backs of racism.
W. Kamau BellRead
You can be as exclusive as you want to in your house, but once you walk outside your house, you have to realize that it's not your world anymore: it's all of our world.
Interpretation
What this quote means
We must recognize that while we can control our personal spaces, the larger world outside requires consideration of others.
This quote emphasizes the importance of community and shared responsibility. While individuals can create exclusive environments within their homes, the moment they step outside, they enter a communal world where the values, needs, and rights of others must be respected and acknowledged. It serves as a reminder that our actions have implications beyond our personal boundaries, and we thrive better when we embrace inclusivity and interconnectedness.
Themes
CommunityResponsibilityInclusivityShared WorldInterconnectedness
In practice
Example use cases
During a community meeting about local issues, I could reference this quote to stress the importance of collective responsibility.
More from W. Kamau Bell
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W. Kamau BellRead
People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens - except for the teeny, tiny, mind-boggling fact that if you live in Puerto Rico, you are not allowed to cast a vote in the election for president. That tiny fact starts to get bigger when you realize that electing our own leaders is the whole reason that we have a country in the first place.
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I've turned the annoying questions that white people ask into a career, so I understand that's where I live.
W. Kamau BellRead
In communities of color, such as Ferguson, it often feels like the police are protecting the white community from us instead of protecting our communities from the criminal element.
W. Kamau BellRead
We can't throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.
W. Kamau BellRead
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Remember this: with mind you will always be a loser. Even if you are victorious, your victories will be just defeats. With mind there is no victory, with no-mind there is no defeat. You have to shift your whole consciousness from mind to no-mind. Once no-mind is there, everything is victorious. Once the no-mind is there, nothing goes wrong, nothing can go wrong.
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The museums of medieval Europe, from Holland to Tuscany, are crammed with instruments and devices upon which the holy men labored devoutly, in order to see how long they could keep someone alive while being roasted. It is not needful to go into further details, but there were also religious books of instruction in this art, and guides for the detection of heresy by pain.
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In bodies moved, the motion is received, increased, diminished, or lost, according to the relations of the quantity of matter and velocity; each diversity is uniformity, each change is constancy.
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Never again shall a single story be told as though it were the only one.
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She always imagined that evil played out on a large canvas- wars, concentration camps, gas chambers, the partitioning of nations. Now she realized that evil had a domestic side, and its very banality protected it from exposure.
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We cannot choose freedom established on a hierarchy of degrees of freedom, on a caste system of equality like military rank. We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.
William FaulknerRead