Privilege Quotes
160 quotes
"Margaret Atwood, the Canadian novelist, once asked a group of women at a university why they felt threatened by men. The women said they were afraid of being beaten, raped, or killed by men. She then asked a group of men why they felt threatened by women. They said they were afraid women would laugh at them."
"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."
"Political correctness’ is a label the privileged often use to distract from their privilege and hate."
"People often call fighting discrimination being 'PC' because they don't want their own unearned privileges challenged."
"I have become very aware how under-represented are the stories of the underprivileged and undervalued. Our records are, in general, very male and if not always the material of the rich, certainly (for obvious reasons) the material of the literate."
"Maybe that was the trouble. She got the first and biggest share of everything – first whack at the new clothes and the biggest part of any special treat. Hazel never had to grab for anything and she was soft."
"In my desperation, I have finally discovered that the only way that I can begin to fill the gaping hole within me is to be thankful for what’s there, and not angry for what’s not."
"If I have never had, or worse yet, I have lost the conviction that life (despite all of the blows it wields and the savagery that it spawns) is nonetheless an incalculable privilege, I will have in that single loss forfeited the whole of my life and effectively wiped out any hope that I can or will do anything other than exist."
"The middle class and upper middle class are highly attached to the institution of school explicitly as a sorting mechanism, as a way of justifying privileges of which middle-class members are already central beneficiaries. These critics suggest that the entire notion of schools as meritocracies actually reifies and reinforces class privilege--making those whom school rewards (those who already have a lot of benefits) feel they deserve the privileges they have."
"When you've grown up mis-educated, surrounded by fear and hate, unaware of your privilege, lies can sound like the truth."
"My life is too often driven by the fear of the next moment verses focusing on the privilege that I have the next moment."
"I am privileged to have your illuminating presence in my life that adds etherealness to my existence!"
"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."
"To judge someone is to say that I have the right to define who they are, verses understanding that God has handed me the priceless privilege of discovering who they are."
"Rights’ are ‘privileges,’ and if I am arrogant enough to demand the former without respecting the latter I will lose both."
"Why are you not smarter? It's only the rich who can't afford to be smart. They're compromised. They got locked years ago into privilege. They have to protect their belongings. No one is meaner than the rich. Trust me. But they have to follow the rules of their shitty civilised world. They declare war, they have honour, and they can't leave. But you two. We three. We're free."
"Independence that has declared its ‘independence’ from the sure and certain compass of sound morals is nothing more than rogue greed having scantily dressed itself in the garb of independence while running off the cliff of anarchy."
"If you have to stretch that far to reach the justification you want, then perhaps you’re standing upon the wrong pedestal."
"A society is patriarchal to the degree that it promotes male privilege by being male dominated, male identified, and male centered. It is also organized around an obsession with control and involves as one of its key aspects the oppression of women.... If men occupy superior positions, it's a short leap to the idea that men must be superior...[and that] whatever men do will tend to be seen as having greater value."
Allan G. Johnson, The Gender Knot: Unraveling Our Patriarchal Legacy
"Few pretty and privileged young women really understand the essential injustice of biology...For most of her life as a woman, the rules were perfectly clear cut: other women were the enemy, and all love was war. She had rejected feminism, quite openly, as a crutch for the envious and ugly, and regarded married women as holding the upper hand if, unlike her own mother, they had any strength of character. The weaknesses and dependencies imposed by fecundity had never entered into her calculations."
"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."
David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
"Excessive praise arises from the same bigotry matrix as excessive criticism."
"The better you look, the more you see."
"God has given me both the right and privilege to outrun Him if I so choose. Yet, if I do so, I will have lost the race."
"It's time to demand that the faithful keep their personal choices, preferences and beliefs in irrational and sometimes dangerous things strictly private. Everyone is absolutely free to believe what they want, provided they do not harass others (or force, or kill them) .. But nobody has the right to insist on privileges simply because they are supporters of one or other of the world's many religions."From: "Gesels van een imaginaire god"('Scourges of an imaginary god')"
"Leadership crisis erupt when people who have not learnt how to obey instructions are given the privilege to give commands. Leaders are experienced servants."
"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."
"History shows that it does not matter who is in power or what revolutionary forces take over the government, those who have not learned to do for themselves and have to depend solely on others never obtain any more rights or privileges in the end than they had in the beginning."
"Memory is a few lines snipped from a larger story that we are privileged to tuck away between the pages of our minds."
"History is only ever invisible when it abets your sense of self, your desires, your ambitions, when it carries your life along in a kind of frictionless way."
"Privilege doesn't just insulate people from the consequences of their prejudice, it cuts them off from their humanity."
"Maybe looking away is about privilege. I need to think harder and longer about my choices and recognize that choosing whom I see and whom I don't see is one of the most hurtful functions of privilege."
"Everyone has a responsibility towards this larger family of man, but especially if you're privileged, that increases your responsibi"
"What is the point of a relationship if not to grant two people the very private privilege to uplift one another every day?"
"I had the privilege of being able to choose, or at least have the opportunity to work at, being anything but an actor."
"What is pain to a man? A privilege!"
"And were you punished? No. Why? Because you were rich.""Money and talent aren't the same thing.""That’s because you can inherit money that was earned by your ancestors," said Sister Carlotta. "And everybody recognizes the value of money, while only select groups recognize the value of talent."
"To me bathtubs are the epitome of luxury. Either you have no money to own one or you have no time to use one."
"If my heart is set on pursuing real treasures, my mind must be fixed solely on the privilege of enjoying them and freed of the obsession of owning them."
"When you see your feet with no footwear, also see those with no feet."
"We have been blessed with the privilege to live life. May we live to the fullness."
"Genealogy itself is something of a privilege, coming far more easily to those of us for whom enslavement, conquest, and dispossession of our land has not been our lot."
"But by this time I was acutely conscious of the gap between law and justice. I knew that the letter of the law was not as important as who held the power in any real-life situation."
Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times
"Those with unearned privileges often spin things as 'political correctness' to further silence those they wish to oppress."
"From those to whom privilege and opportunity are given, we have the right to expect much."
"Power makes you lazy. Insofar as our earlier theoretical discussion of structural violence revealed anything, it was this: that while those in situations of power and privilege often feel it as a terrible burden of responsibility, in most ways, most of the time, power is all about what you don't have to worry about, don't have to know about, and don't have to do."
David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: On Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy
"The act of claiming an identity can be transformational. It can provide healing and empowerment. It can weld solidarity within a community. And, perhaps most importantly, it can diminish power from an oppressor, a dominant group."
"We live with this tortured feeling that we must create that which in reality we have the privilege of finding."
"Abundant living is realizing that life is a privilege whether it’s adhering to our scripts or not."
"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."
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