One of the great ironies of our time is that some of the most progressive cities are among the most systemically racist in their housing policies.
Ritchie TorresRead
What does it say about our society that we invest more in a golf course than the homes of Black and brown Americans?
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote criticizes societal priorities that favor luxury recreational spaces over housing for marginalized communities.
Ritchie Torres's quote highlights the troubling disparity in societal values, where significant investments are made in affluent amenities such as golf courses while neglecting the basic needs of housing for Black and brown Americans. This observation prompts a deeper examination of societal priorities and the systemic inequities that influence resource allocation, reflecting a broader critique of how society often prioritizes the interests of the privileged over those of marginalized populations.
Themes
SocietyInvestmentHousingInequalityEquityBlackBrownCommunity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in discussions about urban planning and investment priorities during a city council meeting.
More from Ritchie Torres
All quotes βSimilar quotes
Once labeled a felon, you are ushered into a parallel social universe. You can be denied the right to vote, automatically excluded from juries, and legally discriminated against in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits - forms of discrimination that we supposedly left behind.
Michelle AlexanderRead
I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States.
Michelle AlexanderRead
I'm sick and tired of black and white people of good intent giving aspirin to a society that is dying of a cancerous disease.
Ralph AbernathyRead
I began to understand that not only was there was a social justice agenda, there was a policy agenda. For every justice campaign there was a policy initiative associated with it.
Martin Luther King IiiRead
Unless young blacks are brought into the mainstream of economic life, they will continue to be on the curbstone.
Walter AnnenbergRead
My dad was focused on trying to get a guaranteed annual income for all people in 1968, shortly before he was killed. He did not get to realize that dream.
Martin Luther King IiiRead