Castes Quotes - Page 5

• I refused to teach Sunday school. When Archdeacon Henry Phillips, my last rector, died, I flatly refused again to join any church or sign any church creed. From my 30th year on I have increasingly regarded the church as an institution which defended such evils as slavery, color caste, exploitation of labor and war.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  War, School, Sunday

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• All prejudices, whether of race, sect or sex, class pride and caste distinctions are the belittling inheritance and badge of snobs and prigs.

  Anna Julia Cooper

  Sex, Pride, Class

  Anna Julia Cooper (2016). “A Voice from the South”, p.54, Courier Dover Publications

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• Loyalism, or Unionism, or Protestantism, or whatever you want to call it, in Northern Ireland - it operates not as a class system, but a caste system.

  Seamus Heaney

  Class System, Caste System, Want

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• For never has there been, in modern times, such a Homeric world, where so much value is pinned onto the utterance of name! Entire conversations, entire lives, are devoted to the act of naming people, and in Pakistan the affluent would be totally devoid of talk if they were unable to take names in vain. Caste and all its subclassifications are recreated every day in the structure of a conversation that knows which names to name.

  Sara Suleri

  Names, People, Would Be

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• Bail out the bankers and bankrupt the school teachers - we will still teachI will never follow the lead of those who exclude the kids who need education the most so that my precious scores will rise. I will never line up with those whose idea of reform is the subtle segregation of the poor and desperate. I want no part of the American caste system.

  John Kuhn

  Teacher, School, Kids

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• Holi, the spring carnival, when members of all castes mingle and let down their hair, sprinkling one another with cascades of red powder and liquid, symbolic of the blood that was probably used in past centuries.

  Wendy Doniger

  Spring, Past, Blood

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• Was there ever a sillier thing before in the world than what I saw in Malabar country? The poor Pariah is not allowed to pass through the same street as the high-caste man, but if he changes his name to a hodge-podge English name, it is all right; or to a Mohammedan name, it is all right.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Country, Men, Names

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1204, Manonmani Publishers

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• "Learn good knowledge with all devotion from the lowest caste. Learn the way to freedom, even if it comes from a Pariah, by serving him. If a woman is a jewel, take her in marriage even if she comes from a low family of the lowest caste." Such is the law laid down by our great and peerless legislator, the divine Manu.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Jewels, Law, Way

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1078, Manonmani Publishers

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• The Pariahs, our fellow beings, ought to be educated by the higher castes.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Pariahs, Educated, Higher

  Swami Vivekananda (1974). “Awakened India”

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• We have avoided in recent years talking openly and honestly about race out of fear that it will alienate and polarize. In my own view, it’s our refusal to deal openly and honestly with race that leads us to keep repeating these cycles of exclusion and division, and rebirthing a caste-like system that we claim we’ve left behind

  Michelle Alexander

  Race, Views, Talking

  "Schools and the New Jim Crow". Interview with Jody Sokolower, truth-out.org. June 04, 2013.

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• ...The Court ...[recognizes]...the persistence of racial inequality and a majority's acknowledgement of Congress's authority to act affirmatively, not only to end discrimination, but also to counteract discrimination's lingering effects. Those effects, reflective of a system of racial caste [legal segregation and discrimination] only recently ended, are evident in our work places, markets, and neighborhoods. Job applicants with identical resumes, qualifications, and interview styles still experience different receptions, depending on their race.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Jobs, Persistence, Race

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• In a rural society communities are "given" for the individual. Community is a fact, whether family or religion, social class or caste.

  Peter Drucker

  Class, Community, Religion

  Peter Drucker (2012). “Managing in the Next Society”, p.156, Routledge

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• To divide along the lines of section or caste or creed is un-American.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Equality, Racism, Lines

  Theodore Roosevelt (2001). “The Selected Letters of Theodore Roosevelt”, Cooper Square Pub

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• Maxon, this is my gift to you. I promise I will make every effort to see these girls through your eyes. Not the eyes of a queen, or the eyes of your mother, but yours. Even if the girl you choose is of a very low caste, even if others think she has no value, I will always listen to your reasons for wanting her. And I will do my best to support your choice.

  Kiera Cass

  Girl, Mother, Queens

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• We must realize that violence is not confined to physical violence. Fear is violence, caste discrimination is violence, exploitation of others, however subtle, is violence, segregation is violence, thinking ill of others and condemning others are violence. In order to reduce individual acts of physical violence, we must work to eliminate violence at all levels, mental, verbal, personal, and social, including violence to animals, plants, and all other forms of life.

  Satish Kumar

  Fear, Thinking, Animal

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• Man treats woman as his own property and not as being capable of feelings, like himself. The way man treats women is much worse than the way landlords treat servants and the high-caste treat the low-caste. These treat them so demeaningly only in situations mutually affecting them; but men treat cruelly and as slaves, from their birth till death.

  Periyar E. V. Ramasamy

  Men, Feelings, Way

  Indian Journal of Social Development: An International Journal, Volume 7, 2007.

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• I worship impersonal Nature, which is neither "good" or "bad", and who knows neither love nor hatred. I worship Life; the Sun, Sustainer of life. I believe in the Law of everlasting struggle, which is the law of life, and in the duty of the best specimens of our race - the natural élite of mankind - to rule the earth, and evolve out of themselves a caste of supermen, a people 'like unto the Gods'.

  Savitri Devi

  Believe, Struggle, Race

  "Pilgrimage". Book by Savitri Devi, p. 327, 1958.

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• All religions are equal to me. And all castes and creeds are dear to me. But though I appreciate all `isms,' religions and political parties for the many good things they seek to achieve, I do not and cannot belong to any of these `isms,' religions or political parties, for the Absolute Truth, while equally including them, transcends all of them and leaves no room for separative divisions which are all equally false.

  Meher Baba

  Spiritual, Wisdom, Party

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• If we want to do more than just end mass incarceration—if we want to put an end to the history of racial caste in America—we must lay down our racial bribes, join hands with people of all colors who are not content to wait for change to trickle down, and say to those who would stand in our way: Accept all of us or none.

  Michelle Alexander

  Hands, Color, America

  Michelle Alexander (2013). “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness”, p.258, The New Press

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• Last evening attended Croghan Lodge International Order of Odd Fellows. Election of officers. Chosen Noble Grand. These social organizations have a number of good results. All who attend are educated in self-government. This in a marked way. They bind society together. The well-to-do and the poor should be brought together as much as possible. The separation into classes--castes--is our danger. It is the danger of all civilizations.

  Rutherford B. Hayes

  Civilization, Class, Organization

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• I lived in a country where I couldn't live where I wanted to live. I lived in a country where I couldn't go where I wanted to eat. I lived in a country where I couldn't get a job, except for those put aside for people of my colour or caste.

  Sidney Poitier

  Country, Jobs, People

  "The leading man". Interview with Burhan Wazir, www.theguardian.com. October 7, 2000.

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• Mr. Washington apologizes for injustice, he belittles the emasculating effects of caste distinctions, and opposes the higher training and ambitions of our brighter minds. The way for people to gain their reasonable rights is not by voluntarily throwing them away.

  W. E. B. Du Bois

  Ambition, Rights, People

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• I actually did a quick survey of how caste plays out in contemporary India. The idea that democracy and development have in some ways eroded caste turned out not to be the case, that it has in fact been entrenched and modernised.

  Arundhati Roy

  Play, Ideas, Democracy

  Interview with Rumnique Nannar, www.pakistantoday.com.pk. April 5, 2014.

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• For African American children, in particular, the odds are extremely high that they will have a parent or loved one, a relative, who has either spent time behind bars or who has acquired a criminal record and thus is part of the under-caste - the group of people who can be legally discriminated against for the rest of their lives. For many African American children, their fathers, and increasingly their mothers, are behind bars. It is very difficult for them to visit. Many people are held hundreds or even thousands of miles away from home.

  Michelle Alexander

  Mother, Children, Father

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• Musicians and artists are not... it's not like politicians or something where you can't really affect them. There's not like this separate caste system where it's like, "I'm the musician, you're the audience. Never the two shall meet." It was a case where it was like, "Hey, you know what? I'm on your level, man."

  Bradford Cox

  Men, Artist, Two

  Source: pitchfork.com

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