Freedom is neither guaranteed nor automatic; not even in the United States. Left unguarded, it can slip away like a thief in the night.
Joy ReidRead
To be white in America is to have the confidence to say, without a second thought: this space, this neighborhood, this city, this county, this country is mine.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the unshakeable confidence that comes with being part of the dominant racial group in America.
Joy Reid's quote emphasizes the innate privilege and sense of belonging that individuals from the dominant race experience in America. It suggests that this confidence allows them to claim ownership over various spaces and places in society without hesitation, contrasting with the experiences of marginalized groups who may not feel the same level of acceptance or security in those environments.
Themes
ConfidencePrivilegeRaceOwnershipBelongingAmerica
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about racial privilege in a sociology class.
More from Joy Reid
All quotes βThe work of anti-racism can only take place inside each individual soul, where we all try to grow into better people. There is no national tonic or instant cure.
Joy ReidRead
To be white in America is to assume, with total self-confidence and little afterthought, the personal ownership of public spaces.
Joy ReidRead
There is a twinge of abandonment that comes with being a member of the African Diaspora. But 'Black Panther' fearlessly introduces and then complicates this and other deeply held albeit rarely expressed emotions; that indeed is what makes this film so profoundly innovative.
Joy ReidRead
For millions of Americans who happen to be black or brown, that core bond of trust with the government that governs closest to you, is too often broken.
Joy ReidRead
Similar quotes
The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of human existence.
Tom WolfeRead
Examine then, and see if He be not the dispenser of kingdoms, who is Lord at once of the world which is ruled, and of man himself who rules; if He have not ordained the changes of dynasties, with their appointed seasons, who was before all time, and made the world a body of times; if the rise and the fall of states are not the work of Him, under whose sovereignty the human race once existed without states at all.
TertullianRead
And when there are enough outsiders together in one place, a mystic osmosis takes place and you're inside.
Stephen KingRead
All resistance is a rupture with what is. And every rupture begins, for those engaged in it, through a rupture with oneself.
Alain BadiouRead
He who wishes to revenge injuries by reciprocal hatred will live in misery. But he who endeavors to drive away hatred by means of love, fights with pleasure and confidence; he resists equally one or many men, and scarcely needs at all the help of fortune. Those whom he conquers yield joyfully
Baruch SpinozaRead
There is no more fundamental axiom of American freedom than the familiar statement: In a free country we punish men for the crimes they commit but never for the opinions they have.
Harry S. TrumanRead