Equal Rights
Page 12
- In any conflict area, it is always the women who are the first point of attack. But I think the more they have seen of oppression and violence, they have gotten more brave, more strong, more fearless than they were. You see this refusal to just keep quiet and do as you are told.
- We are human beings, and this is the part of our human nature, that we don’t learn the importance of anything until it’s snatched from our hands. And when, in Pakistan, when we were stopped from going to school, at that time I realized that education is very important. And education is the power for women. And that’s why the terrorists are afraid of education. They do not want women to get education, because then women would become more powerful.
- You know, my father was a great encouragement for me, because he spoke out for women’s rights, he spoke out for girls’ education. And at that time I said that ‘Why should I wait for someone else? Why should I be looking to the government? To the army, that they would help us? Why don’t I raise I my voice? Why don’t we speak out for our rights?’
- So there’s this profound mythology around whistleblowers which says, first of all, they’re all crazy. But what I’ve found going around the world and talking to whistleblowers is actually they’re very loyal and, quite often, very conservative people. They’re hugely dedicated to the institutions that they work for. And the reason that they speak up, the reason they insist on seeing, is because they care so much about the institution and want to keep it healthy.
- A lot of people criticized me for speaking out, not long ago, about gay marriage. I could not remain silent any longer. It’s the civil rights of our day. It’s the issue of our day.
- All lives have equal value. And so you say, ‘why do poor children die when other children don’t? Why do some people have enough nutrition or reasonable toilets and other people don’t?’ So those basic needs that, through innovation, actually it’s very affordable to bring them...to everyone.
- We thank you, father, for the tremendous progress we have made in 50 years. That we can sit in the safe confines of this sanctuary, being protected by the city of Birmingham, when 50 years ago the city turned its eye and its ears away from us.
- If Trayvon Martin had been born white he would be alive today. That has been established beyond all reasonable doubt. If he had been white, he never would have been stalked by Zimmerman, there would have been no fight, no funeral, no trial, no verdict. It is the Zimmerman mindset that must be found guilty - far more than the man himself. It is a mindset that views black men and boys as nothing but a threat, good for nothing, up to no good no matter who they are or what they are doing. It is the Zimmerman mindset that has birthed a penal system unprecedented in world history, and relegated millions to a permanent undercaste.
- Whatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs, and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy — the special obligation I felt, as a black man like you, to help those who need it most, people who didn’t have the opportunities that I had — because there but for the grace of God, go I — I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me.
- I don’t know how people can get so anti-something. Mind your own business, take care of your affairs, and don’t worry about other people so much.
- Improving the Internet is just one means by which to improve the human condition. It must be done with an appreciation for the civil and human rights that deserve protection — without pretending that access itself is such a right.
- Today, Americans think of almost every social injustice as a civil rights issue.