Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and I believe continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards
Interpretation
The quote highlights the hypocrisy of a nation that sees itself as diverse while still shying away from confronting racial issues.
Eric Holder's quote critiques the American identity as an ethnic melting pot, suggesting that, despite this self-image, the nation often avoids honest discussions about race and racism. By calling it a 'nation of cowards,' he implies that many people are unwilling to engage with the uncomfortable truths about racial dynamics, which ultimately hinders progress toward true equality and understanding.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about the importance of addressing racial issues in society.
While he was in the service, in the South and in Oklahoma, he was refused service at a couple of places where he was in uniform, and was told that African Americans, blacks, Negros, were not served. And in spite of that, I've never known a man who loved this country more than my father did.
Guantanamo is a chief recruiting tool for al-Qaida. It has put a wedge between the United States and at least some of its allies.
In a lot of ways, civil rights division is the conscience of the Justice Department. You can almost measure what kind of Justice Department you have by what kind of civil rights division that you have.
One of the things I learned is that you've got to deal with the underlying social problems if you want to have an impact on crime - that it's not a coincidence that you see the greatest amount of violent crime where you see the greatest amount of social dysfunction.
Those who peacefully gather to express sympathy for the family of Michael Brown must have their rights respected at all times. And journalists must not be harassed or prevented from covering a story that needs to be told.
Communities of color don't understand what it means to be a police officer, the fear that police officers have in just being on the streets.
It is at a fair that man can be drunk forever on liquor, love, or fights; at a fair that your front pocket can be picked by a trotting horse looking for sugar, and your hind pocket by a thief looking for his fortune.
My hapless peers with their lofty dreams--how I envy and despise them! I'm with the others, the even more hapless, who have no-one but themselves to whom they can tell their dreams and show what would be verses if they wrote them. I'm with those poor slobs who have no books to show, who have no literature beside their own soul, and who are suffocating to death due to the fact that they exist without having taken that mysterious, transcendental exam that makes one eligible to live.
Have mountains, and waves, and skies, no significance but what we consciously give them, when we employ them as emblems of our thoughts?
She had lived her early years as though she were waiting for something she might, but never did, become.
Silence is the unbearable repartee.
I may err but I am not a heretic, for the first has to do with the mind and the second with the will!
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