One of our worst traits in journalism is that when we have a narrative in our minds, we often plug in anecdotes that confirm it. Thus we managed to portray President Gerald Ford, a first-rate athlete, as a klutz.
Nicholas KristofRead
The one public system in which America goes out of its way to provide services to African-Americans is prison.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the systemic issues in American society where marginalized communities are more often subjected to incarceration than given supportive services.
Nicholas Kristof's quote addresses the systemic inequalities faced by African-Americans in the U.S. It suggests that, rather than providing equitable services such as education, healthcare, or economic support, society has prioritized a punitive system that disproportionately impacts African-Americans. This commentary on the prison system underscores broader structural problems in how society responds to the needs of marginalized groups, reflecting a failure in social justice and equity.
Themes
PrisonAfrican-AmericansSystemic InequalitySocial IssuesJustice
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on criminal justice reform, this quote can be referenced to emphasize the need for supportive services instead of punitive measures.
More from Nicholas Kristof
All quotes βA basic element of the American dream is equal access to education as the lubricant of social and economic mobility.
Nicholas KristofRead
Worrying about bills, food, or other problems leaves less capacity to think ahead or to exert self-discipline. So, poverty imposes a mental tax.
Nicholas KristofRead
Most moms and dads, they want to be good moms and dads. But it's an incredibly hard job when you are stressed out, when you are poor, when your life is in chaos. And giving them some of the tools to be better parents, to whittle away at that parenting gap, gives those kids a much better starting point in life.
Nicholas KristofRead
Since the end of the 1970s, something has gone profoundly wrong in America. Inequality has soared. Educational progress slowed. Incarceration rates quintupled. Family breakdown accelerated. Median household income stagnated.
Nicholas KristofRead
The news media's silence, particularly television news, is reprehensible. If we knew as much about Darfur as we do about Michael Jackson, we might be able to stop these things from continuing.
Nicholas KristofRead
Similar quotes
The legacy of slavery comes from the sustained political, legal and economic effort to link permanently an entire group of people to poverty - and to mystify that systematic disenfranchisement by making up something called race, which could serve as a distraction.
Sarah ChurchwellRead
Private landlords as well as public landlords are free to discriminate against people with criminal records for the rest of their lives. You come out of prison, and where are you expected to go?
Michelle AlexanderRead
As long as white people put people of color, African Americans and Latinos, in the same dispensable bag, and look at our children of color as insignificant and treat women of color as not as deserving of protection as white women, we will never achieve true equality.
Claudette ColvinRead
The gifts of God should be enjoyed by all citizens in Mississippi.
Medgar EversRead
Before the Civil War, the Negro was certainly as efficient a workman as the raw immigrant from Ireland or Germany. But, whereas the Irishmen found economic opportunity wide and daily growing wider, the Negro found public opinion determined to 'keep him in his place.'
W. E. B. Du BoisRead
In Western Australia, minerals are being dug up from Aboriginal land and shipped to China for a profit of a billion dollars a week. In this, the richest, 'booming' state, the prisons bulge with stricken Aboriginal people, including juveniles whose mothers stand at the prison gates, pleading for their release. The incarceration of black Australians here is eight times that of black South Africans during the last decade of apartheid.
John PilgerRead