Best 538 quotes in «privilege quotes» category

We all know that there are language forms that are considered impolite and out of order, no matter what truths these languages might be carrying. If you talk with a harsh, urbanized accent and you use too many profanities, that will often get you barred from many arenas, no matter what you’re trying to say. On the other hand, polite, formal language is allowed almost anywhere even when all it is communicating is hatred and violence. Power always privileges its own discourse while marginalizing those who would challenge it or that are the victims of its power.

...we all live our lives with multiple identities intersecting with one another, creating a mix of privileges and challenges that all people carry with us. Race, gender, economic background, religion, immigration status, family acceptance, and so much more create a complex matrix that sometimes erects obstacles but other times ensures support in overcoming barriers put in your way.

We are all dust passing through the air, the difference is, some are flying high in the sky, while others are flying low. But eventually, we all settle on the same ground.

We believe some people are more special, more beautiful, more capable, more influential, more intelligent, more gifted, and have a greater capacity for good than others, often based on material possessions and outer appearances. At the root, that is why we are engaged in a struggle now in the Congress led by one group of people who truly believes their role is to defend the privileges of the elite. They defend tax breaks for the rich and ask for trillions in cuts to the safety nets that protect the middle class, the elderly, the sick, and the poor, because, in essence, they believe one group is more important than the other, more deserving than the other, and one contributes more good than the other. This is actually an illusion that is blind to the interdependence of the entire creation, which unites the weak with the strong, the privileged with the poor, and the ugly with the beautiful. All the inequities of our world are basically attempts to actualize this erroneous belief. And that is why there is turmoil, because we are in conflict with the truth, working to manifest an idea that is false.

We cannot end just one form of oppression, so we need to be on board with other activists. If we are not, we doom social justice activists to perpetually pulling up the innumerable shoots that spring from the very deep roots of oppression. Furthermore, inability to see one’s own privilege and ignorance of the struggles that others face (in a homophobic, racist, ageist, ableist, sexist society) are major impediments to social justice activism. Those who are privileged must give way so that others can take the lead, bringing new social justice concerns and methods to the activist’s table.

We have a deep interest in denying the forms of oppression which benefit us.

We have been blessed with the privilege to live life. May we live to the fullness.

We start a relationship with someone not only because of how great they are but how great they make us feel. And because they have granted us this extraordinary gift—a chance to experience love, joy, compassion, and security —it is our exclusive privilege to make them feel wonderful about themselves, especially during days when they, themselves, don't feel so wonderful.

We need to get to a place where we discuss privilege by way of observation and acknowledgment rather than accusation. We need to be able to argue beyond the threat of privilege. We need to stop playing Privilege or Oppression Olympics because we’ll never get anywhere until we find more effective ways of talking through difference. We should be able to say, “This is my truth,” and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot coexist. Because at some point, doesn’t privilege become beside the point?

We should be able to say, "This is my truth," and have that truth stand without a hundred clamoring voices shouting, giving the impression that multiple truths cannot co-exist. Because at some point, doesn't privilege become beside the point?

Western liberals who rightly condemn imperialism [are] yet are blind to the cultural imperialism they are performing when they silence my critiques of misogyny. They behave as if they want to save my culture and faith from me, and forget that they are immune to the violations about which I speak.

What could she do, bound as she was by the tyranny of silence? She dared not explain the girl to herself...that wilfully selfish tyranny of silence evolved by a crafty old ostrich of a world for its own well-being and comfort. The world hid its head in the sands of convention, so that seeing nothing it might avoid Truth...if silence is golden it is also in this case, very expedient.

We who were born into privilege and opportunity were given these gifts with an expectation: to give them away.

We who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface hidden tension that is already alive

What does religious freedom mean if we would use it as a cover for hate and privilege?

What is pain to a man? A privilege!

What is the point of a relationship if not to grant two people the very private privilege to uplift one another every day?

What is so unique about coaching female business executives is the fact they approach taking executive business decisions the same way they approach matching two pieces of cloths they will wear going to a cocktail party or to a classic concert . To my surprise this turned to be something that teaches me deeper business dimensions male executives are not privileged with.

What shall I do to be forever known, And make the Age to come my own? I shall like Beasts or Common People dy, Unless you write my Elegy; Whilst others great by being born are grown, Their Mothers Labour, not their own. In this scale Gold, in th' other Fame does ly, The weight of that mounts this so high. These men are Fortunes Jewels, moulded bright; Brought forth with their own fire and light. If I, her vulgar stone for either look, Out of my self it must be strook.

What shall I do to be forever know, And make the Age to come my own? I shall like Beasts or Common People dy, Unless you write my Elegy; Whilst others great by being born are grown, Their Mothers Labour, not their own. In this scale Gold, in th' other Fame does ly, The weight of that mounts this so high. These men are Fortunes Jewels, moulded bright; Brought forth with their own fire and light. If I, her vulgar stone for either look, Out of my self it must be strook.

When people wield accusations of privilege, more often than not, they want to be heard and seen. Their need is acute, if not desperate, and that need rises out of the many historical and ongoing attempts to silence and render invisible marginalized groups. Must we satisfy our need to be heard and seen by preventing anyone else from being heard and seen? Does privilege automatically negate any merits of what a privilege holder has to say? Do we ignore everything, for example, that white men have to say?

When anything and everything you ask for is handed to you, those hands seem to blur into nothingness and you forget they're alive just like you are.

When the wind is at your back, you don't even notice it But when it is blowing in your face, you become very aware of it's presence. That's how it is with privilege: When you have it, you don't even notice it When you don't have it - you know.

Why so? one would think at such a time you would most exult in your privilege of being able to imitate the various brilliant and delightful touches of nature.

When you grow up knowing that you deserve to be on top, that the lesser houses exist to serve your house’s glorious destiny, you take such things for granted. You’re born assuming that someone else is paying the cost of your life. It’s just the way things are. What happens during annexation—it’s a difference of degree, not a difference of kind.

when you are at the top you only see shadows and when your at the bottom you are blinded by the light but from the middle everything is pleasing... day and night

When you see your feet with no footwear, also see those with no feet.

When you've grown up mis-educated, surrounded by fear and hate, unaware of your privilege, lies can sound like the truth.

White males can't win these days - if they have something, they're "privileged" and if they want something, they're displaying "entitlement.

Whiteness is not a culture. There is Irish culture and Italian culture and American culture - the latter, as Albert Murray pointed out, a mixture of the Yankee, the Indian, and the Negro (with a pinch of ethnic salt); there is youth culture and drug culture and queer culture; but there is no such thing as white culture. Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position. It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it. Without the privileges attached to it, the white race would not exist, and the white skin would have no more social significance than big feet.

Willingly embracing the emptiness of the tomb is more difficult for those of us in places of privilege. We have so much “stuff,” so many activities and endless sources of distraction and busyness to fill any potential emptiness, that our pretense is better fortified against any attempts to expose it, whether through circumstance or intentionality. This is why, in part, Jesus speaks so strongly against the love of money. He did not demonize money itself, but recognized how easily we become enslaved to a different master, in bondage to mammon, instead of following Christ in loving service of God and others.

Women everywhere are always expected to continually imagine what one situation or another would look like from a male point of view. Men are almost never expected to do the same for women. So deeply internalized is this pattern of behavior that many men react to any suggestion that they might do otherwise as if it were itself an act of violence.

Without knowing it, the adults in our lives practiced a most productive kind of behavior modification. After our chores and household duties were done we were give "permission" to read. In other words, our elders positioned reading as a privilege - a much sought-after prize, granted only to those goodhardworkers who earned it. How clever of them.

With privilege comes responsibility, you must understand that. People expect us to lead by example and we shall not disappoint them.

You don't necessarily have to do anything once you acknowledge your privilege. You don't have to apologize for it. You need to understand the extent of your privilege, the consequences of your privilege, and remain aware that people who are different from you move through and experience the world in ways you might never know anything about. They might endure situations you can never know anything about.

You are not responsible for the past, but insofar as you do nothing, you are complicit in the present created by it.

You could jump so much higher when you had somewhere safe to fall.

A free press is not a privilege but an organic necessity in a great society. ... A great society is simply a big and complicated urban society.

You have the privilege of presenting a picture of what heaven will be like to those around you.

Access to the Vedas is the greatest privilege this century may claim over all previous centuries.

You're not under attack when others gain rights and privileges you've always had.

Your generosity is cosmetic if you don't fully comprehend that the power to give is positively correlated with a concomitant power to deny, and both of these are the privileges of those who live in abundance, and I don't mean money.

A man doesn't say I will starve myself to death to keep from starving, or that he'd spend all of his money to save money. Why should he be willing to die for the privilege of living?

Ageing is a privilege not a predicament.

A lesbian woman came up to me and said, ‘why are you denying me my right?’ I said, ‘well, because it’s not a right.’ It’s a privilege that society recognizes because society sees intrinsic value to that relationship over any other relationship.

All solitary enjoyments, quickly fall, or become painful, so that, perhaps, no more insufferable misery can be conceived than that which must follow incommunicable privileges. Only imagine a human being condemned to perpetual youth while all around him decay and die. O, how sincerely would he call upon death for deliverance!

A lot of positive psychology is stuck in being the psychology of privilege, and I reject that.

And part of that is, what is the point of having children if you don't have the privilege of bringing them up?

And let no government imagine, that, to strip them of the power of defrauding their subjects, is to deprive them of a valuable privilege. A system of swindling can never be long lived, and must infallibly in the end produce much more loss than profit.

Attempts to juggle domestic responsibilities with artistic production have often resulted in smaller bodies of work, and often works smaller in scale, than those produced by male contemporaries. Yet art history continues to privilege prodigious output and monumental scale or conception over the selective and the intimate.