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
We really suffer from a hot-take disease, wanting to be the first one who has the hottest take.
Interpretation
The desire to express immediate opinions can lead to shallow thinking.
W. Kamau Bell's quote critiques the phenomenon of 'hot takes,' where individuals feel pressured to share their opinions quickly, often at the expense of thoughtful analysis. This reflects a societal tendency to prioritize attention and virality over depth and understanding, suggesting that such impulsive reactions can lead to a fragmented discourse lacking in meaningful insight.
In practice
In a seminar discussing media influence, one could use this quote to highlight the impact of rapid-fire commentary.
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.
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.
I've turned the annoying questions that white people ask into a career, so I understand that's where I live.
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.
We can't throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.
When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.
Some people drift along like a cork on a river, feeling that they cannot do anything except drift, moment to moment. This is an attitude of mind. Everyone can be constructive even in tiny ways.
I think it is a problem of our society that we don't enjoy (ourselves.) We have these values, like, you have to be rich, you have to get a diploma, you have to work hard, otherwise you are useless, you are nothing but a pariah. And the book asks, 'Is it true? This is what my mom told me, but is it true?
The idea that there is a God who rewards and punishes, and who can reward, if he so wishes, the meanest and vilest of the human race, so that he will be eternally happy, and can punish the best of the human race, so that he will be eternally miserable, is subversive of all morality.
There is an ultimate wildness in all this, for the universe, as existence itself, is a terrifying as well as a benign mode of being. If it grants us amazing powers over much of its functioning we must always remember that any arrogance on our part will ultimately be called to account. The beginning of wisdom in any human activity is a certain reverence before the primordial mystery of existence, for the world about us is a fearsome mode of being. We do not judge the universe.
Our emphasis here is based not only on the growing seriousness of drug-related crimes, but also on the belief that relieving our police and our courts from having to fight losing battles against drug use will enable their energies and facilities to be devoted more fully to combating other forms of crime.
Killing people because you don't like their ideas - it's a bad thing.
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