When the civil rights battle was won, all the Jews and hippies and artists were middle class white people and all the blacks were still poor. Materially, not much changed.
quote by Jonathan Lethem
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
There's a very big gulf between the black civil rights leadership in America and the black middle class in America. The black middle class are conservative. Many of those minorities can be persuaded to be members of the Republican Party.
quote by Pete du Pont
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Living Together
Why does mankind hate people based on religion and race?
Is it ignorance, education, or governments deciding our place.
For people are people regardless of the color of their face.
And the love in our hearts is an example of God's grace.
European people are the most powerful people under the sun.
Asians, Blacks, and Jews are constantly under the economic gun.
But people should not be exploited because of the color of skin.
White people must reject racism for a world of love to begin.
But are not Blacks, Jews, and Asians also guilty of racism?
For some of their religious leaders are advocates of separatism.
Now all people, whites, Asians, Jews,and Blacks, live on earth.
For racism will show God how much our souls are really worth.
All people will die and their bodies will stink becoming dirt.
And the devil will have the souls of all racist to forever hurt.
For Love is the most powerful force throughout the world.
Conquering all obstacles and causing racist minds to whirl.
We can't take money religion family or hate when we die.
But we can take love, and send it back to those who will cry.
For only love will cure any grieving and lonely heart.
And cause a no-good son or daughter to give life another start.
People are just human beings regardless of their ethnic pride.
So people should try to constantly look spiritually inside.
So forget about religion racism and discriminating government.
Because only Brotherhood will eliminate all bills and the rent.
poem by Raymond C. Russell
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War in America
In this sad country there will be a bitter war,
Not from foreign peoples who would attack us,
But between our very rich and hopeless poor.
There’ll be death and destruction as the war rages,
While wealthy choke the waning middle class.
As history repeats the tragic Dark Middle Ages.
When the middle class has only bitterness and hate,
Opportunities for peace will then be too late.
When they realize that the rich will never yield,
They’ll take their hopes and causes to the battle field.
The rich will have the best arms that money can buy.
The power of the poor will be in their angry numbers
And their desire to effect changes in their lots or die.
Man can go to the moon, create an internet, cure cancer.
But put rich politicians with no conscience in a room;
They’ll languish and war in America will be the answer.
poem by Gregory Huyette
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The issues that matter to me are the social safety nets for people, health care, middle-class concerns. We need to take care of the middle class and the poor in our country.
quote by Tim McGraw
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Primer For Blacks
Blackness
is a title,
is a preoccupation,
is a commitment Blacks
are to comprehend—
and in which you are
to perceive your Glory.
The conscious shout
of all that is white is
“It’s Great to be white.”
The conscious shout
of the slack in Black is
'It's Great to be white.'
Thus all that is white
has white strength and yours.
The word Black
has geographic power,
pulls everybody in:
Blacks here—
Blacks there—
Blacks wherever they may be.
And remember, you Blacks, what they told you—
remember your Education:
“one Drop—one Drop
maketh a brand new Black.”
Oh mighty Drop.
______And because they have given us kindly
so many more of our people
Blackness
stretches over the land.
Blackness—
the Black of it,
the rust-red of it,
the milk and cream of it,
the tan and yellow-tan of it,
the deep-brown middle-brown high-brown of it,
the “olive” and ochre of it—
Blackness
marches on.
The huge, the pungent object of our prime out-ride
is to Comprehend,
to salute and to Love the fact that we are Black,
which is our “ultimate Reality,”
which is the lone ground
from which our meaningful metamorphosis,
from which our prosperous staccato,
group or individual, can rise.
Self-shriveled Blacks.
Begin with gaunt and marvelous concession:
YOU are our costume and our fundamental bone.
All of you—
you COLORED ones,
you NEGRO ones,
those of you who proudly cry
“I’m half INDian”—
those of you who proudly screech
“I’VE got the blood of George WASHington in MY veins”
ALL of you—
you proper Blacks,
you half-Blacks,
you wish-I-weren’t Blacks,
Niggeroes and Niggerenes.
You.
poem by Gwendolyn Brooks
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The middle-class people
In the pages of magazines & story-lines of TV channels,
I have always heard about the middle class people
What we are and where we belong (?)
disco & pop are replacing folk song
we talk about globalization at the cost of identity
while chasing endless dreams, meet harsh reality
In efforts to achieve esteem ambitions
people are forgetting culture & traditions
rich people do not have value for it,
& poor do not have time
it's the middle-class that carry weight of expectations
poem by Deependra Kumar Jha
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Women's Liberation
Talk to me about the feminist movement,
the gubba middle class
hetero sexual revolution
way back in the seventies
when men wore tweed jackets with
leather elbows, and the women, well
I don’t remember or maybe I just don’t care
or can’t relate.
Now what were those white women on about?
What type of neurosis was fashionable back then?
So maybe I was only a school kid; and kids, like women,
have got on thing that joins that schemata,
like we’re not worth listening to,
and who wants to liberate women and children
what will happen in an egalitarian society
if the women and the kids start becoming complacent
in that they believe they should have rights
and economic independence,
and what would these middle class kids and white women do
with liberation, with freedom, with choices of
do I stay with my man, do I fall in love with other
white middle class women, and it wouldn’t matter if
my new woman had kids or maybe even kids and dogs
Yes I’m for the women’s movement
I want to be free and wear dunlop tennis shoes.
And indigenous women, well surely, the liberation
of white women includes all women regardless . . .
It doesn’t, well that’s not for me to deal with
I mean how could I, a white middle class woman,
who is deciding how can I budget when my man won’t
pay the school fees and the diner’s card club simply
won’t extend credit.
I don’t even know if I’m capable
of understanding
Aborigines, in Victoria?
Aboriginal women, here, I’ve never seen one,
and if I did, what would I say,
damned if I’m going to feel guilty, for wanting something
better for me, for women in general, not just white
middle class Volvo driving, part time women’s studies
students
Maybe I didn’t think, maybe I thought women in general
meant, Aboriginal women, the Koori women in Victoria
Should I apologise
should I feel guilty
Maybe the solution is to sponsor
a child through world vision.
Yes that’s probably best,
I feel like I could cope with that,
Look, I’d like to do something for our Aborigines
but I haven’t even met one,
and if I did I would say
all this business about land rights, maybe I’m a bit
scared, what’s it mean, that some day I’ll wake up
and there will be this flag, what is it, you know
red, black and that yellow circle, staked out front
and then what, Okay I’m sorry, I feel guilt
is that what I should be shouting
from the top of the rialto building
The women’s movement saved me
maybe the 90s will be different.
I’m not sure what I mean, but I know that although
it’s not just a women’s liberation that will free us
it’s a beginning
poem by Lisa Bellear
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Dont You Think It's Time?
children have rights,
women have rights.
lovers have rights.
people of all religions,
and even atheists have rights.
people of all colors,
speaking every language have rights.
trees and rivers have rights.
cats and dogs have rights.
cattle have rights,
homeless people have rights.
prisoners have rights.
democrats and republicans have rights,
even socialists have rights.
the jobless have rights,
old people have rights...
and the hungry have
the right to be fed!
damnit! dont you think it's time?
poem by Eric Cockrell
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We might be on the brink of an apocalypse if, instead of poor people with suicide bombs killing middle class guys, middle-class people with suicide bombs started killing rich guys.
quote by Bruce Sterling
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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You can't rise as a class. You have to rise individually. It's what many of the civil rights-era people don't understand.
quote by Alphonso Jackson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The New Inner-City Slave Plantation
The now-a-day slave or labor force
The ruling-class determines the course
The political master’s pastor contorts
Politics and policy aborts
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
Work like a blind jackass
Support and finance the ruling class
Being bi-partisan-just a mask
Cultured career criminals civilizing crass
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
The political engineers of The Greater Good own
The inner city war-zone
The psychotropic drug sets the tone
Slavery as the new world order is the throne
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
Multi-tasking a labor saving device
Freedom of movement has no right
Monopolized government enslaved all might
The inner city slave- plantation private and prime
Real estate blight
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
The thirteenth amendment of the constitution
On the inner city slave-plantation no social, no economical,
No educational, no political absolution
On the inner city slave-plantation, indentured servants,
Chattel slaves, still considered Black Gold
By the God Fearing slave codes used to control
The new inner city slave-plantation
Human and civil rights violation with extreme taxation
On the new inner city slave-plantation
The American Flag can not wave
Even Democracy is revered as a Black Slave
poem by Josephine DixonBanks
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Civil rights leaders are involved in helping poor people. That's what I've been doing all my life.
quote by Andrew Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prejudiced? Who? Me? ? .....[Personal; Human Nature; Racial Prejudice]
I'm a white guy, aged 64, raised in a small town way up north.
Do some thoughts I have about blacks signal prejudice coming forth?
First I'd say NO, but then again I'd say YES.
But such thoughts, by both whites and blacks, are normal I would guess.
What thoughts am I now referring to you will probably ask.
To answer that sensible question will put my mind to task.
My interactions with blacks, I think, no prejudice does reveal.
And the rare times I have 'prejudice' thoughts, I think they're no big deal.
Do you wish to know of what my 'pre-judged' thoughts consist?
I'd almost rather not tell you. But, if you insist.
I sometimes think 'nigger'; when and where I grew up that was a 'bad' name.
I also think of them as different though people are the 'same'.
And here is where I say 'I don't like generalization'.
By 'same' I mean neither all blacks nor all whites are 'the same' in this nation.
So whites and blacks can both be smart or stupid, mean or kind;
within each 'race' criminals and 'saints' you'll find.
I wasn't raised to either love or hate blacks. My parents seemed not to judge.
And I've changed my mind again; I'm NOT prejudiced. From that opinion I shall not budge!
Then why you ask do I sometimes think 'nigger' when I think of a black?
I think it's due to both a primeval urge to break society's rules, and to thought-control I lack.
Luckily I don't act out my 'bad' thoughts. I might be in jail now if I had.
When in grade school, a boy said I called him 'nigger'. The accusation made me sad.
poem by Bri Edwards
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I maintain that every civil rights bill in this country was passed for white people, not for black people.
quote by Stokely Carmichael
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Uprising
throughout the world there is civil war and unrest.
peoples patience being put to the test.
how much more can they take
before it becomes much too late.
when will these countries open up their eyes
and listen to the peoples battle cry.
what will it take for these countries to see
that they need unity.
clean up your own home, before it's too late
and let the people gain your faith.
don't destroy all their dreams
show a spark of light, that can be seen.
feed the hungry and help the poor
listen to their voices and hear their shouts
this is what humanity should be about.
eighty percent of the populations
is low to middle class
and if this continues, that number will not last.
people are tired, and they gather in crowds
hear the whispers, fear the sounds.
as politicians and leaders of nations
hear the rumbles, feel their sensations.
they are tired of being pushed around
and are willing to tear your lives to the ground.
so open your eyes, before it's too late
and help save the human race.
poem by Louis Rams
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There are three social classes in America: upper middle class, middle class, and lower middle class.
quote by Judith Martin
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Another American Civil War
The rich are becoming richer than ever before
As the middle class is left expiring in its own gore.
Each day prices rise as people's confidence falls,
But wealthy are too busy to hear their desperate calls.
Rich are counting all the new money they're gaining
And can't believe that there's anyone complaining.
Like Medieval Times they live in castles behind walls,
Shielding them from the increasingly frantic calls.
As with their ancestors greed is the order of the day.
They have no interest in a poorer class with little say.
Only when downtrodden rise and demand their rights
Will walls fall and rich feel the pain of people's plights.
History is replete with middles classes becoming poor
Until they refuse to be ruled by the rich and declare war!
poem by Gregory Huyette
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When it came to political power, blacks need not apply. Add to this steaming stew the growing tensions over the Vietnam War and the movement for civil rights, and you had plenty of elements to fire the imagination of a novice journalist.
quote by Andrea Mitchell
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I don't call myself a white supremacist. I'm a civil rights activist concerned about European-American rights.
quote by David Duke
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I do not believe that defending traditional marriage between one man and one woman excludes anybody or usurps anybody's civil rights and denies anybody their civil rights.
quote by Alan Autry
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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