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Quote by Lawrence Nault

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Lawrence Nault

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“Mom,' he said, 'why do white people want colored people shining shoes?' She turned toward him, completely at a loss as to what to say, for she had never been able to figure it out for herself. She looked down at her hands. They were brown and strong, the fingers were long and well-shaped. Perhaps because she was born with skin that color, she couldn't see anything wrong with it. She was used to it. Perhaps it was a shock just to look at skins that were dark if you were born with a skin that was white. Yet dark skins were smooth to the touch; they were warm from the blood that ran through the veins under the skin; they covered bodies that were just as well put together as the bodies that were covered with white skins. Even if it were a shock to look at people whose skins were dark, she had never been able to figure out why people with white skins hated people who had dark skins. It must be hate that made them wrap all Negroes up in a neat package labeled 'colored'; a package that called for certain kinds of jobs and a special kind of treatment. But she really didn't know what it was. 'I don't know, Bub,' she said finally. 'But it's for the same reason we can't live anywhere else but in places like this'—she indicated the cracked ceiling, the worn top of the set tub, and the narrow window, with a wave of the paring knife in her hand.”

RacePovertyRacismInequalityAfrican AmericansBlacksInequity
Book:The Street
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“This world was one of great contrasts, she thought, and if the richest part of it was to be fenced off so that people like herself could only look at it with no expectation of ever being able to get inside it, then it would be better to have been born blind so you couldn't see it, born deaf so you couldn't hear it, born with no sense of touch so you couldn't feel it. Better still, born with no brain so that you would be completely unaware of anything, so that you would never know there were places that were filled with sunlight and good food and where children were safe.”

WealthPovertyDangerSafetyContrasts
Book:The Street
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“Her fingers curled into a fist and she shouldered the door open. Its rusted hinges objected, creaking, and a dusty, half-rotten scent swarmed her nose. Her cheeks heated. For Cassin to be here, to see this- 'Just a brute, remember,' he stepped to her side. 'I've lived in far worse. At least you had walls and a roof.' Nesta hadn't realised how much she needed to hear those words, and her shoulders loosened as she stepped into the cottage proper. In the chill dimness, broken only by rays of sunlight, she frowned at the ceiling. 'This house used to have a roof.”

PovertySarah J MaasEmbarrassedCassianNesta ArcheronNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesCottageDilapidatedIn Ruins
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
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“Her fingers curled into a fist and she shouldered the door open. Its rusted hinges objected, creaking, and a dusty, half-rotten scent swarmed her nose. Her cheeks heated. For Cassian to be here, to see this- 'Just a brute, remember,' he stepped to her side. 'I've lived in far worse. At least you had walls and a roof.' Nesta hadn't realised how much she needed to hear those words, and her shoulders loosened as she stepped into the cottage proper. In the chill dimness, broken only by rays of sunlight, she frowned at the ceiling. 'This house used to have a roof.”

PovertySarah J MaasEmbarrassedNesta ArcheronNestaA Court Of Silver FlamesCottageDilapidatedIn Ruins
Book:A ​Court of Silver Flames
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“It was a queer, rather disgusting scene. Below were the handful of simple, well-meaning people, trying hard to worship; and above were the hundred men whom they had fed, deliberately making worship impossible. A ring of dirty, hairy faces grinned down from the gallery, openly jeering. What could a few women and old men do against a hundred hostile tramps? They were afraid of us, and we were frankly bullying them. It was our revenge upon them for having humiliated us by feeding us. ... A man receiving charity practically always hates his benefactor—it is a fixed characteristic of human nature; and, when he has fifty or a hundred others to back him, he will show it.”

PovertyCharityPhilanthropy
Book:Down and Out in Paris and London
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“We could be Immortal If we just let go of hate If we just let go of chaos If we just let go of war If we just let go of guns We could be Immortal If we just embraced love Put human beings & nature first But instead we choose To be the worst examples Of our primitive selves Lacking in all of our best virtues Lacking in any new ideas or values Without these realizations We go one step forward & Always two steps back Never succeeding Never growing Dead”

WarHumanityChangePovertyCivilizationPrimitiveHuman Behavior
Book:R A W POEMS R.M. ENGELHARDT
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“Do you ever feel how unfair life can get for someone? Do you ever feel how someone feels when they are born into a poor family? When someone finds out that they have to work in a job like being a waiter/ waitress in a hotel at the age of 20 years or a office boy or office girl in an organisation? They did not have the education that you were privileged to have because you were born to parents who were smarter than the common man or woman of that time. What kind of a world are we giving to everyone? Why is this world so unfair to most people?”

PovertyCommon ManUnderprivilegedLack Of EducationLife Is Not FairUnfair WorldCommon WomanWorld Is Not Fair
Author:Avijeet Das
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