We all have a responsibility to create a just society
Interpretation
Creating a just society is a collective responsibility that each individual shares.
Bryan Stevenson emphasizes that the pursuit of justice and equity in society is not the job of a few but rather the duty of everyone. Each person has a role to play in fostering fairness, understanding, and compassion, which are essential for building a just community.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about social justice reforms.
That's my mission: I really want to get in the heads and hearts of kids and persuade them that they can believe things they haven't seen, they can do things that maybe others haven't done before them, that they are more than their worst acts.
One of the things that pains me is we have so tragically underestimated the trauma, the hardship we create in this country when we treat people unfairly, when we incarcerate them unfairly, when we condemn them unfairly.
Somebody has to stand when other people are sitting. Somebody has to speak when other people are quiet.
I grew up in a segregated community: I couldn't go to the public schools, beaches, certain parts of town.
If we had done the work that we should have done in the 20th century to combat our history of racial inequality, no one could win national office after demonizing people because they're Mexican or Muslim. We would be in a place where we would find that unacceptable.
The opposite of poverty is not wealth. I don't believe that. I actually think, in too many places, the opposite of poverty is justice.
Because of social pressure, individualism is rejected by most people in favor of conformity. Thus the individual relies mainly upon the actions of others and neglects the meaning of his own personal life. Hence he sees his own life as meaningless and falls into the “existential vacuum” feeling inner void. Progressive automation causes increasing alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, and suicide.
People may come to our communities because they want to serve the poor; they will only stay once they have discovered that they themselves are poor.
Ideas are invented only as correctives to the past. Through repeated rectification of this kind one may hope to disengage an idea that is valid.
I do not speak as I think, I do not think as I should, and so it all goes on in helpless darkness.
Who ARE You?" This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, I--I hardly know, sir, just at present-- at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.
The little man is still a man.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.