The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table - it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us.
Clint SmithRead
Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Systemic racism has serious and detrimental effects on people's health and safety.
In this quote, Clint Smith emphasizes the pervasive and damaging impact of systemic racism on individuals and communities. He draws a parallel between the physical violence of gun violence ('by bullet') and the insidious, long-term health consequences ('by blood clot') that arise from systemic oppression, highlighting that both manifestations of racism are harmful and life-threatening.
Themes
Systemic RacismHealthViolenceOppressionJustice
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing social justice, one might use this quote to underscore the urgent need for systemic change.
More from Clint Smith
All quotes βIn an effort to create a culture within my classroom where students feel safe sharing the intimacies of their own silences, I have four core principles posted on the board that sits in the front of my class, which every student signs at the beginning of the year: read critically, write consciously, speak clearly, tell your truth.
Clint SmithRead
One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does so because poetry helps him see something in the world that he might not have seen before.
Clint SmithRead
History has proven that art depicting black people cannot be disentangled from the political implications that such art has on their lives. As Africans were being stripped from the continent and sailed across the Atlantic to the Western world, depictions of black people in Western art changed in order to further render them racialized caricatures.
Clint SmithRead
Photography, sculpture, and painting were wielded as cultural weapons over the course of generations to substantiate the idea that black people were inherently subordinate beings; they were used to make slavery acceptable and to make black subjugation more palatable.
Clint SmithRead
In my hometown of New Orleans, grief is a public spectacle that, somewhat paradoxically, necessitates celebration. The dead are not mourned so much as they are posthumously venerated with music and dance.
Clint SmithRead
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