You can't segregate and humiliate people decade after decade without creating long-lasting injuries.
Interpretation
Systematic discrimination causes deep and lasting harm to individuals and communities.
In this quote, Bryan Stevenson emphasizes the profound impact of persistent segregation and humiliation on individuals and society as a whole. He suggests that this cycle of oppression leads to profound psychological and social injuries that can last for generations, arguing for the necessity of acknowledging and addressing these injustices to heal and move forward.
In practice
Referencing this quote in a speech about social justice initiatives.
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.
We all have a responsibility to create a just society
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.
You might say, 'Can't we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?' In this way we'd become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.
Because he's the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. Because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A dark knight.
Human morality is unthinkable without empathy.
Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.
It is our misfortune, as a historical generation, to live through the largest expansion in expressive capability in human history, a misfortune because abundance breaks more things than scarcity.
I'm not afraid to die - it's just that I had so much left to do in this world.
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