Affirmative Action Quotes - Page 5

• So many of our conversations (about affirmative action) have been dishonest

  Clarence Thomas

  Action, Conversation, Affirmative

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• Remember the vast majority of the Democrats as well as all the Republicans in the House of Representatives in Louisiana voted for my signature-piece of legislation in the house which was a bill, actually a bill for true civil rights. That there must be no discrimination against anyone on the basis of race in affirmative-action.

  David Duke

  Rights, Race, House

  "Dr. Duke on CNN: Hear the UNCENSORED FULL Interview Here". davidduke.com. January 5, 2015.

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• The need of black conservatives to gain the respect of their white peers deeply shapes certain elements of their conservatism. In this regard, they simply want what most people want, to be judged by the quality of their skills, not by the color of their skin. But the black conservatives overlook the fact that affirmative action policies were political responses to the pervasive refusal of most white Americans to judge black Americans on that basis.

  Cornel West

  Color, Skills, White

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• You take a poor black child. Give him a good education, tell him he's somebody, that God didn't create junk when he created him, and that black child will create his own affirmative action.

  J. C. Watts

  Children, Giving, Black

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• The problem is that affirmative action could never really get at the issue of corporate power in the workplace, and so you ended up with the downsizing; you ended up with de-industrializing. You ended up with the marginalizing of working people and working poor people even while affirmative action was taking place, and a new black middle class was expanding.

  Cornel West

  Class, Issues, People

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• I want to make one thing clear: I'm pro-choice, I'm pro-affirmative action, I'm pro- environment, pro-health care, and pro-labor. And if that ain't a Democrat, then I must be at the wrong meeting.

  Wesley Clark

  Choices, Care, Want

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• [I] can't actually imagine a time in which the need for more diversity would ever cease. Affirmative action has been an issue since segregation practices. The question is not when does it end, but when does it begin [..] When do people of color truly get the benefits to which they are entitled?

  Eric Holder

  Color, Practice, Issues

  "Holder talks financial crime, affirmative action at Low". Columbia Spectator, February 24, 2012.

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• The system knows how to cherry pick black people. It's like affirmative action - once a year, one is recognized. But what has to occur is self-emergence so if they ignore you, you don't have to disappear.

  Haile Gerima

  Self, Years, People

  Source: blogs.indiewire.com

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• [On affirmative action:] Universities give a boost in admissions for other factors besides race, factors that bring no social benefit, such as athletic ability, celebrity of parents, and alumni connections. It is remarkable how little agitation there is against those practices.

  Barbara Bergmann

  Race, Practice, Giving

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• The fact is that in too many parts of our country, we still have discrimination. And affirmative action is not just something that applies to people of color. Some people have a mistaken view of it in America. It also is with respect to women, it's with respect to other efforts to try to reach out and be inclusive in our country.

  John F. Kerry

  Country, Views, Color

  "Text Of Bush-Kerry Debate III (3)". www.cbsnews.com. October 13, 2004.

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• Workers, black and white, need some kind of international affirmative action to protect them from unfair competition with unorganized or slave labor abroad and unfair competition with robots at home.

  Jesse Jackson

  Home, Black And White, Slave Labor

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• If we are prepared to invest the necessary time and effort, affirmative action can contribute to Harvard's quality and not detract from it.

  Derek Bok

  Effort, Quality, Action

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• The Australian way of affirmative action is setting goals and recognising discrimination and lack of opportunity and deciding to take action and setting some goals and targets. I guess I prefer that language to talking about quotas.

  Quentin Bryce

  Opportunity, Talking, Goal

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• If they're all so brilliant and I'm such an affirmative-action hire, how come they didn't catch me?

  Jayson Blair

  Action, Brilliant, Affirmative

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• A Confucian or Jewish love of learning would gain minorities far more than any affirmative action laws we might pass.

  Richard Lamm

  Law, Minorities, Might

  "Two Wands" by Gov. Dick Lamm, www.huffingtonpost.com. March 18, 2010.

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• One moves swiftly and imperceptibly from a world in which affirmative action can`t be ended because its beneficiaries are too weak to a world in which it can`t be ended because its beneficiaries are too strong.

  Christopher Caldwell

  Strong, Moving, World

  Christopher Caldwell (2009). “Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam and the West”, p.313, Penguin UK

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• I think that we need more economic-based solutions to the problems afflicting the Black community, and I think that that's a way to redefine affirmative action. I grew up with poor white people in West Virginia, and I know there's a culture of poverty. I know that I've seen white people perform exactly the same pathological forms of behavior as Black people do when they're systematically deprived, whether it's getting pregnant, doing drugs, dropping out of school, whatever we're talking about. I think that we should have affirmative action for poor white people too.

  Henry Louis Gates

  School, Thinking, Virginia

  "The Tavis Smiley Show", www.pbs.org. October 21, 2013.

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• I ended Affirmative Action by executive order and replaced it with a leadership model that created more opportunities for African-American and Hispanic students.

  Jeb Bush

  Opportunity, Order, African American

  "RNC chair blasts CNBC's 'crap sandwich' debate; Bush, Kasich call out GOP rivals". "Hannity" with Sean Hannity, www.foxnews.com. October 29, 2015.

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• It is important to understand that the system of advantage is perpetuated when we do not acknowledge its existence.

  Beverly Daniel Tatum

  Racism, Important, Action

  Beverly Daniel Tatum (1997). “"Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?" and Other Conversations about Race”, Basic Books

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• The government can back up its tastes and beliefs with the police power. That is why it cannot be permitted tastes and beliefs. Most emphatically, it cannot be permitted to define one group as being privileged over another group of people. It was wrong in the days of Jim Crow; it is wrong in the days of affirmative action.

  Charles A. Murray

  Government, People, Police

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• I'm pro-choice, pro-affirmative action, pro-environment and pro-labor. I was either going to be the loneliest Republican in America or I was going to be a happy Democrat.

  Wesley Clark

  America, Choices, Action

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• What makes the Southern Poverty Law Center particularly odious is its habit of taking legitimate conservatives and jumbling them with genuine hate groups (the Klan, Aryan Nation, skinheads, etc.), to make it appear that there's a logical relationship between say opposing affirmative action and lynching, or demands for an end to government services for illegal aliens and attacks on dark-skinned immigrants. The late novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand called this 'the broad-brush smear.'

  Don Feder

  Hate, Dark, Government

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