I pray with my whole soul that the divide-and-conquerers among us will not triumph over us. We need each other in this world so desperately.
Ruby DeeRead
I'm very much interested in getting prisons off the stock market. I'm very much interested in upgrading the public school system... and taking a second look at capital punishment.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a desire to address important social reforms, particularly in the criminal justice and education systems.
Ruby Dee emphasizes the need for significant reform in societal institutions such as prisons and public schools. She highlights the urge to remove the commercial aspects from prisons, improve education, and reconsider the ethics of capital punishment, suggesting a broader call for a more humane and just society.
In practice
During a community meeting discussing local reforms, one might quote this to rally support for educational initiatives.
I pray with my whole soul that the divide-and-conquerers among us will not triumph over us. We need each other in this world so desperately.
You should always be prepared to win. But as much as I tell myself that, I've accepted another kind of role. Racism undercuts expectation, something like that. I'm not saying that to excuse myself from anything, but I've lived all this time, and things don't happen.
We both grew up in the atmosphere of struggle, both Ossie and me, ... I come out of Harlem and Harlem comes out of me - wailing police sirens and street parties, rumors and landlords, that cultural, spiritual scene. And Ossie came up from the South, where struggle and dying were part of everyday life. That is who we are.
I respect the fact that a director has studied the text and the road map of work before us, the subtleties, interconnections, underpinnings... His job is to paint the entire picture and knows all the colors that have to be in it.
See, I donβt expect to win a prize for stoic control and dignity at mourning time. Death deserve tantrums. Beating back shocked indignation, kicks in the groin, stones, classified unacceptable, not to be tolerated, not to be wooed, not to be conspired with. Only then can music, dance, movies, plays, rap be about life. Only then can life be cherished and adored.
I never thought about myself as an activist when we were coming along. I love the people I love. I didn't care whether they could be a Democrat, Republican, communist... anything but a racist.
When the human race neglects its weaker members, when the family neglects its weakest one - it's the first blow in a suicidal movement. I see the neglect in cities around the country, in poor white children in West Virginia and Virginia and Kentucky - in the big cities, too, for that matter.
Abstract sympathy with the working class as an economic entity is easy, but the feeling can vanish on contact with actual members of the group, who often arrive with disturbing beliefs and powerful resentments - who might not sound or look like people urban progressives want to know.
Moms that get evicted are depressed and have higher rates of depressive symptoms two years later. That has to affect their interactions with their kids and their sense of happiness. You add all that together, and it's just really obvious to me that eviction is a cause, not just a condition, of poverty.
Discrimination has a lot of layers that make it tough for minorities to get a leg up.
Too many of the conflicts which are caused today are caused by the problems that emerge from people who are in poverty.
I don't want to sound Pollyannish about this. I understand that poverty is never just poverty. It's often this collection of maladies, this compounded adversity. I'm not naive about the problem. But I think that stable, steady housing is one of the surest footholds we could have on the road to financial stability.
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