We put fear and prejudice on trial, and fear and prejudice lost.
Interpretation
This quote signifies the triumph of truth and justice over irrational fears and biases.
David Boies highlights the importance of confronting and challenging fear and prejudice in society. The quote emphasizes that when subjected to scrutiny and reason—like being put on trial—these negative forces cannot withstand the weight of truth, ultimately emphasizing the power of justice and understanding in overcoming societal issues.
In practice
During a speech on social justice, this quote can support the importance of confronting biases.
One of the things that the court held in Brown v. Board of Education is that government can't impose a badge of inferiority on some of its citizens. Yet that is exactly what Proposition 8 does with respect to gay and lesbian couples in California.
It's terribly important that we extend the promise of equality that the Supreme Court and that the district court articulated in the DOMA case and in the Perry case to all Americans in all 50 states.
The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision.
Unlike people of my generation, my children and my grandchildren have grown up living with, knowing, people who were outwardly gay and lesbian. And they have learned that they're just like us... And when you see that they're just like us, the rationale for discrimination melts away.
We're now segregating our schools based on economics; we're segregating our schools based on where a child's parents live. And it has the same corrosive effect of destroying people's opportunity as racial segregation did.
Who would be free themselves must strike the blow. Better even to die free than to live slaves.
Our capacity for wholeheartednes s can never be greater than our willingness to be broken-hearted.
Women standing up for each other is critically important.
People have to liberate themselves, because liberation is not a single act. It's a question of eternal vigilance. Otherwise, you'll just become enslaved by someone else.
There is a thin line between peace of the brave and peace of the hostage... between compromise - even calculated risk - and irresponsibility and capitulation.
U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
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