The view of how America speaks is reflected in our laws. And one of the laws is fair housing. It very clearly prohibits discrimination in the sale and rental of housing in America. It's been a sad fact of American life that the practice in many communities has been quite the opposite.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the importance of fair housing laws in combating discrimination in America.
Walter F. Mondale highlights that American laws should reflect the nation's values of equality and fairness, particularly in housing. Despite the existence of laws that prohibit discrimination in selling and renting homes, the reality often contradicts these principles, pointing to a persistent issue of inequality in communities across the country.
In practice
This quote could be used during a public seminar discussing the importance of anti-discrimination laws.
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.
I maintain that the period during the first half of the 1990s, the period in which rising inequality reached its peak, was a period in which we came very, very close to a demagogic immobilization of racism in this society.
The extent to which all people in our society are made to count, and believe that they count, is not just a measure of decency; it makes sound economic sense.
Some people think that poor people are lazy. Actually, it takes a lot of work to survive when you are dirt-poor.
The prison-industrial complex, poverty, and the school system has more effect on a young black male in America than Jay-Z does, by far. And that's not a diss to Jay-Z. The crime rate in the black community was high before hip hop. Rapping about it is just a reflection of the life a lot of people are living.
There never yet was, and never will be, a nation permanently great, consisting, for the greater part, of wretched and miserable families.
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