Discrimination Inspirational Quotes

I do note with interest that old women in my books become young women on the covers... this is discrimination against the chronologically gifted.

The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing.

In friendship...we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years' difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another...the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting--any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you," can truly say to every group of Christian friends, "Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another." The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.

I am not a little bit of many things; but I am the sufficient representation of many things. I am not an incompletion of all these races; but I am a masterpiece of the prolific. I am an entirety, I am not a lack of anything; rather I am a whole of many things. God did not see it needful to make me generic. He thinks I am better than that.

Love has no gender - compassion has no religion - character has no race.

He was the kind of young man whose handsome face has brought him plenty of success in the past and is now ever-ready for a new encounter, a fresh-experience, always eager to set off into the unknown territory of a little adventure, never taken by surprise because he has worked out everything in advance and is waiting to see what happens, a man who will never overlook any erotic opportunity, whose first glance probes every woman's sensuality, and explores it, without discriminating between his friend's wife and the parlour-maid who opens the door to him. Such men are described with a certain facile contempt as lady-killers, but the term has a nugget of truthful observation in it, for in fact all the passionate instincts of the chase are present in their ceaseless vigilance: the stalking of the prey, the excitement and mental cruelty of the kill. They are constantly on the alert, always ready and willing to follow the trail of an adventure to the very edge of the abyss. They are full of passion all the time, but it is the passion of a gambler rather than a lover, cold, calculating and dangerous. Some are so persistent that their whole lives, long after their youth is spent, are made an eternal adventure by this expectation. Each of their days is resolved into hundreds of small sensual experiences - a look exchanged in passing, a fleeting smile, knees brushing together as a couple sit opposite each other - and the year, in its own turn, dissolves into hundreds of such days in which sensuous experience is the constantly flowing, nourishing, inspiring source of life.

Being homosexual is no more abnormal than being lefthanded.

Either you are homophobic or you are a human - you cannot be both.

Pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

If origin defines race, then we are all Africans – we are all black.

A NATION'S GREATNESS DEPENDS ON ITS LEADER To vastly improve your country and truly make it great again, start by choosing a better leader. Do not let the media or the establishment make you pick from the people they choose, but instead choose from those they do not pick. Pick a leader from among the people who is heart-driven, one who identifies with the common man on the street and understands what the country needs on every level. Do not pick a leader who is only money-driven and does not understand or identify with the common man, but only what corporations need on every level. Pick a peacemaker. One who unites, not divides. A cultured leader who supports the arts and true freedom of speech, not censorship. Pick a leader who will not only bail out banks and airlines, but also families from losing their homes -- or jobs due to their companies moving to other countries. Pick a leader who will fund schools, not limit spending on education and allow libraries to close. Pick a leader who chooses diplomacy over war. An honest broker in foreign relations. A leader with integrity, one who says what they mean, keeps their word and does not lie to their people. Pick a leader who is strong and confident, yet humble. Intelligent, but not sly. A leader who encourages diversity, not racism. One who understands the needs of the farmer, the teacher, the doctor, and the environmentalist -- not only the banker, the oil tycoon, the weapons developer, or the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyist. Pick a leader who will keep jobs in your country by offering companies incentives to hire only within their borders, not one who allows corporations to outsource jobs for cheaper labor when there is a national employment crisis. Choose a leader who will invest in building bridges, not walls. Books, not weapons. Morality, not corruption. Intellectualism and wisdom, not ignorance. Stability, not fear and terror. Peace, not chaos. Love, not hate. Convergence, not segregation. Tolerance, not discrimination. Fairness, not hypocrisy. Substance, not superficiality. Character, not immaturity. Transparency, not secrecy. Justice, not lawlessness. Environmental improvement and preservation, not destruction. Truth, not lies. Most importantly, a great leader must serve the best interests of the people first, not those of multinational corporations. Human life should never be sacrificed for monetary profit. There are no exceptions. In addition, a leader should always be open to criticism, not silencing dissent. Any leader who does not tolerate criticism from the public is afraid of their dirty hands to be revealed under heavy light. And such a leader is dangerous, because they only feel secure in the darkness. Only a leader who is free from corruption welcomes scrutiny; for scrutiny allows a good leader to be an even greater leader. And lastly, pick a leader who will make their citizens proud. One who will stir the hearts of the people, so that the sons and daughters of a given nation strive to emulate their leader's greatness. Only then will a nation be truly great, when a leader inspires and produces citizens worthy of becoming future leaders, honorable decision makers and peacemakers. And in these times, a great leader must be extremely brave. Their leadership must be steered only by their conscience, not a bribe.

We should always be clear that animal exploitation is wrong because it involves speciesism. And speciesism is wrong because, like racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, classism, and all other forms of human discrimination, speciesism involves violence inflicted on members of the moral community where that infliction of violence cannot be morally justified. But that means that those of us who oppose speciesism necessarily oppose discrimination against humans. It makes no sense to say that speciesism is wrong because it is like racism (or any other form of discrimination) but that we do not have a position about racism. We do. We should be opposed to it and we should always be clear about that.

Sentiments that glorify humanity know no racial distinction.

If people would only listen to themselves, they would realize how naïve and ignorant they sound. Just because the term was created doesn’t mean it should be used.

In the unification of two minds, orientation of sexuality is irrelevant.

In the biological sense, race does not exist.

I Am More Than My Race: So why put me in a category? Is it because you do not want me to tell my story? Despite my exotic face, I am human, and I am a part of the human race.

The world since Adam has been white—and corrupt. The world of tomorrow will be black—and righteous. In the white world there has been nothing but slavery, suffering, death and colonialism. In the black world of tomorrow, there will be true freedom, justice and equality for all. And that day is coming—sooner than you think.

Speciesism is morally objectionable because, like racism, sexism, and heterosexism, it links personhood with an irrelevant criterion. Those who reject speciesism are committed to rejecting racism, sexism, heterosexism, and other forms of discrimination as well.

Why is race always a factor?

Because of the lingering discrimination, many women still lack confidence. They live in fear of stepping beyond what they feel is acceptable 'female' behavior. I can remember feeling that I wasn't 'normal' because I was aggressive, had dreams and goals, and wanted do do great things...I am glad now that I found courage to do something radical and chase my dreams.

Why is race always a factor? Nowadays, people are so quick to categorize one another and put each other in a stereotypical bubble that they do not take time to know the authentic person. It is sad, and they are quick to judge by looking at someone’s skin.

We won't attain maturity unless we cultivate the wisdom to discriminate which deeds of our ancestors we need to reject and which achievements we need to take inspiration from.

Hate pulls so much negative energy from the soul. I guess the saying is true; misery loves company.

They got it all wrong. They think they’re doing good with their fight and their ignorance and discrimination and all that. But really, they’re killing the earth with it.

Homosexuals are not made, they are born.

Separation is the first cause of inequality.

The way of the world is full of judgmental people. People size me up and down with their eyes. I am told that my hair is too curly to be white and too straight to be black. People ask me questions as if I owe them an answer—what does my race have anything to do with you—and why do you care. The fact is, race shouldn’t exist—it is not real. It is made up, but race does matter.” Race shouldn’t matter, but it does. In society's eyes, race is stubbornly real.

All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.

The feminism of equality, of toughness, of anti-discrimination, has been overwhelmed by one of victimhood and demands for special treatment....At a certain point, when we demand an equal ratio of men to women in certain fields, what we’re criticizing is not “the system,” but the choices that women themselves are making.....let’s keep our eye on the question of equal opportunity and stop obsessing about equal outcomes, lest we find ourselves trying to cure society, not of sexism, but of free choice.

I am a Dalit in Khairlanji. A Pandit in the Kashmir valley. A Sikh in 1984. I am from the North East of India when I am in Munirka. I am a Muslim in Gujarat; a Christian in Kandhamal. A Bihari in Maharashtra. A Delhi-wallah in Chennai. A woman in North India. A Hindi-speaker in Assam. A Tamilian in MP. A villager in a big city. A confused man in an indifferent world. We're all minorities. We all suffer; we all face discrimination. It is only us resisting this parochialism when in the position of majoritarian power that makes us human. I hope that one day, I can just be an Indian in India - only then can I be me.

Homosexuality is immutable, irreversible and nonpathological.

If we take the position that an assessment that veganism is morally preferable to vegetarianism is not possible because we are all “on our own journey,” then moral assessment becomes completely impossible or is speciesist. It is impossible because if we are all “on our own journey,” then there is nothing to say to the racist, sexist, anti-semite, homophobe, etc. If we say that those forms of discrimination are morally bad, but, with respect to animals, we are all “on our own journey” and we cannot make moral assessments about, for instance, dairy consumption, then we are simply being speciesist and not applying the same moral analysis to nonhumans that we apply to the human context.

Our pioneers gave us a head start. They prepared us to fight many battles for decades to come as they left the map for us to continue on the path of their greatness. As quoted by the great Susan B. Anthony, “Oh, if I could but live another century and see the fruition of all the work for women! There is so much yet to be done.” The shade of our skin might be a bit darker or lighter, but we share the same rejections and discriminations as we are treated unfairly because we are women. Our religions might very well be different; however, we share the same identity, being females productively working for change for a greater cause.

Choose a leader who will build bridges - not walls. A leader who will promote peace - not wars. A leader who believes in equality - not discrimination. A leader who is transparent - not secretive. A leader who will speak for all - not just animals.

Can you imagine, somebody telling you, your love for your dearly beloved is a sin! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, women are inferior to men, and are meant only serve the men! Can you imagine, somebody telling you, a man can have multiple wives, and yet be deemed civilized! Here that somebody is a fundamentalist ape - a theoretical pest from the stone-age, that somehow managed to survive even amidst all the rise of reasoning and intellect.

Big Cabinet meeting on our program through Justice dept. to wipe out legal discriminations against women. We've changed 27 laws, have 60 more in process & today approved some more.

Racism is like a wildfire that will never die out. The only way for it to die out is for it to be smoother with love.

Racism is real, and you do not need a magnifying glass to see it.

On clear nights, the moon casts a glow on everything uniformly. It doesn’t discriminate by shining on one pond and not on another.

Recognizing that you have a bias and blind spots is essential to personal growth.

I am living in world full of lost hope and discrimination. I am living a life in which social equality does not exist and I am not sure that it ever can, or if once upon a time it ever did.

That king who forsakes lust, anger, bestows wealth to needy, Discriminates, is learned, active, is regarded as man of authority; Prosperity is attends on king who inspires confidence in others truly, Who punishes guilty in right measure, knows when to show mercy. [97] - 33 Mahatma Vidur

Discriminations suit animals, not humans. And yet, the unfortunate reality is, it is the humans that discriminate each other on the grounds of imaginary labels, not the animals. This way, animals are more civilized than humans.

Out of the temptation of Hate, and burned by the fire of Despair, triumphant over Doubt, and steeled by Sacrifice against Humiliation, . . . He bent to all the gibes and prejudices, to all hatred and discrimination with that rare courtesy which is the armor of pure souls. . . . he simply worked, inspiring the young, rebuking the old, helping the weak, guiding the strong.

The multitude of men look satisfied and pleased; as if enjoying a full banquet, as if mounted on a tower in spring. I alone seem listless and still, my desires having as yet given no indication of their presence. I am like an infant which has not yet smiled. I look dejected and forlorn, as if I had no home to go to. The multitude of men all have enough and to spare. I alone seem to have lost everything. My mind is that of a stupid man; I am in a state of chaos. Ordinary men look bright and intelligent, while I alone seem to be benighted. They look full of discrimination, while I alone am dull and confused. I seem to be carried about as on the sea, drifting as if I had nowhere to rest. All men have their spheres of action, while I alone seem dull and incapable, like a rude borderer. (Thus) I alone am different from other men, but I value the nursing-mother (the Tao).

It is pathetic how people attach value to race. Some people say race is real and that race doesn’t matter. The fact is, race shouldn’t exist—it is not real. It is made up, but race does matter. Race shouldn’t matter, but it does. In society's eyes, race is stubbornly real.

She would begin to view them ... with greater objectivity; their need for her started to look like something less discriminating, more parasitical. She felt duped by them into believing herself to be generous, tireless, inspiring, when in fact she was just a self-sacrificing victim. It was this feeling that often brought her to a position of clarity about her own life. She would start to give them less and herself more: by draining her, they created in her a new capacity for selfishness.

I asked Hillary why she had chosen Yale Law School over Harvard. She laughed and said, "Harvard didn't want me." I said I was sorry that Harvard turned her down. She replied, "No, I received letters of acceptance from both schools." She explained that a boyfriend had then invited her to the Harvard Law School Christmas Dance, at which several Harvard Law School professors were in attendance. She asked one for advice about which law school to attend. The professor looked at her and said, "We have about as many woen as we need here. You should go to Yale. The teaching there is more suited to women." I asked who the professor was, and she told me she couldn't remember his name but that she thought it started with a B. A few days later, we met the Clintons at a party. I came prepared with yearbook photos of all the professors from that year whose name began with B. She immediately identified the culprit. He was the same professor who had given my A student a D, because she didn't "think like a lawyer." It turned out, of course, that it was this professor -- and not the two (and no doubt more) brilliant women he was prejudiced against - who didn't think like a lawyer. Lawyers are supposed to act on the evidence, rather than on their prejudgments. The sexist professor ultimately became a judge on the International Court of Justice. I told Hillary that it was too bad I wasn't at that Christmas dance, because I would have urged her to come to Harvard. She laughed, turned to her husband, and said, "But then I wouldn't have met him... and he wouldn't have become President.

Sometimes you gotta lose a few people to succeed.

Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.” -Charlena E. Jackson, Why are You Obsessed with My Race?

Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.

I am always this happy-go-lucky person, but sometimes my ‘happy-go-lucky’ runs out.

Every day, it seems like it will never end. I fall asleep, wake up, and it seems like this bullshit world of people repeats the cycle again with cruel and hateful words.

There may be weeds in my life, but the sun outweighs all of the bad.

Most of the time, black and white people despise me. I get tired of being the one who always has to leave it all behind, forgive and forget as if nothing ever happened.

I cannot expect anything from anyone when I know exactly what I am going to get.

My guard is always up because of how some people would treat me because I am biracial.

I am not the one to put in a ‘category.’” -Charlena E. Jackson, Why are You Obsessed with My Race?

I feel dead inside. I do not fit in. I struggle mentally to find my place in this world. I do not know who I am. It is like being multiracial is a double edge sword.

I always had my blackness and whiteness question. It hurts because I feel like you are asking me to question my relationship with my mother and father.

I Am More Than My Race.

It seems like we cannot escape racism because it is everywhere we go.

America has divided and separated people because of our skin. It is a war of two races—I do not think there will ever be racial harmony.

Race is a ‘social DNA,’ and they act like mixed blood is a mystery. We live in a systemic racist world.

It makes me sick to see that we as Americans are at war with each other’s race.

Our generation is the change.

WE CAN LEARN THE TRUTH ABOUT AMERICA’S HISTORY WITHOUT SPREADING HATE.

When you look at me, what do you see? When you see me, you see a war of colors because that is what you were taught to see.

Mixed-race is overlooked and misunderstood.” -Charlena E. Jackson, Why are You Obsessed with My Race?

It is character that should be the sole measure of judgement in the society of thinking humanity, and nothing short of that would do.

The only classification to be made out of humans should be based on character and nothing but the character.

I Am More Than My Race. Labels do not define me. I was told my ‘whiteness’ will get me far. Is that right? I cannot tell because all of my life, their definition of ‘far’ left me a scar.

Start working my friend – start working towards humanizing the world. Because the world needs humans – conscientious humans, not some dumb manikins, driven by prejudice and discrimination.

I think people don’t think I work, because I wear stilettos and look damn fine. But that’s discrimination against stilettos and against looking damn fine! And I object to this form of discrimination!

The Great Way is not named; Great Discriminations are not spoken; Great Benevolence is not benevolent; Great Modesty is not humble; Great Daring does not attack. If the Way is made clear, it is not the Way.

If more people are comfortable in their skin and think for themselves, then I do not believe manipulation and hate would be so dominant in the world today.” -Charlena E. Jackson, Why are You Obsessed with My Race?

It is sad that this country is condemned by a generational curse of centuries and decades of hate. The pollution of hate will end when we speak the truth without everyone thinking the fingers are being pointed at them.

Discriminations are never a sign of a civilized society. What makes us civilized is our act of liberated kindness with other people beyond the man-made primitive citadels of gender, race, religion and sexual orientation.

Why do people hate my color so much? Why do I intimidate them? Why are they disgusted by me? What have I done to make them hate me? I did not choose to be biracial. Why can’t I be accepted for me? Why do I have to choose?

I am used to some of the black girls saying I want to be black to prove a point and most of the white girls saying I used my white side when I need something. I never understood why they would make those senseless comments.

I have to fight for my life because I have a black Dad and a white Mom. I am judged everywhere I go because people are too busy looking at my color. Their eyes scan me up and down as they try to figure out what I am mixed with.

29. “I have to fight for my life because I have a black Dad and a white Mom. I am judged everywhere I go because people are too busy looking at my color. Their eyes scan me up and down as they try to figure out what I am mixed with.

We need a conversion of morals,” the elderly man said. “Not just superficially, but profoundly. And in both races. We need a great saint - some enlightened common sense. Otherwise, we’ll never have the right answers when the pressure groups - those racists, super-patriots, whatever you want to call them - tag every move toward racial justice as communist-inspired, Zionist-inspired, Illuminati-inspired, Satan-inspired … part of some secret conspiracy to overthrow the Christian civilization.

The racial oppression that inspired the first generations of the civil rights movement was played out in lynchings, night raids, antiblack pogroms, and physical intimidation at the ballot box. In a typical battle of today, it may consist of African American drivers being pulled over more often on the highways. (When Clarence Thomas described his successful but contentious 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearing as a “high-tech lynching,” it was the epitome of tastelessness but also a sign of how far we have come.) The oppression of women used to include laws that allowed husbands to rape, beat, and confine their wives; today it is applied to elite universities whose engineering departments do not have a fifty-fifty ratio of male and female professors. The battle for gay rights has progressed from repealing laws that execute, mutilate, or imprison homosexual men to repealing laws that define marriage as a contract between a man and a woman. None of this means we should be satisfied with the status quo or disparage the efforts to combat remaining discrimination and mistreatment. It’s just to remind us that the first goal of any rights movement is to protect its beneficiaries from being assaulted or killed. These victories, even if partial, are moments we should acknowledge, savor, and seek to understand.

Nothing has changed. Many say there is a new system that was born in America. Nah, it is not new. The system never died. It is more of a shady renovation, if you will. It reminds me of a reality TV show; however, it has been renewed with over 400 new seasons. It is now what I call the new Jim Crow.

My words are not for the rich businessmen and women, bureaucrats, fashion models, and other affluent people living in our world. My words are for the strugglers, and the fighters, who need them to continue the fight against injustice, oppression, inequality and discrimination against them by an insensitive world.

Being biracial is exhausting. I mean, we cannot change who we are. Someone told me that I do not experience colorism on a negative level. Just because I am light-skinned, I am told I deny the privilege I have. What is my privilege? My color? Colorism is a huge issue within itself—I call everything that is going on ‘social constructionism.

Neither are the humanistic scholars and artists of any great help these days. They used to be, and were supposed to be, as a group, carriers of and teachers of the eternal verities and the higher life. The goal of humanistic studies was defined as the perception and knowledge of the good, the beautiful, and the true. Such studies were expected to refine the discrimination between what is excellent and what is not (excellence generally being understood to be the true, the good, and the beautiful). They were supposed to inspire the student to the better life, to the higher life, to goodness and virtue. What was truly valuable, Matthew Arnold said, was 'the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world.' [...] No, it is quite clear from our experience of the last fifty years or so that the pre-1914 certainties of the humanists, of the artists, of the dramatists and poets, of the philosophers, of the critics, and of those who are generally inner-directed have given way to a chaos of relativism. No one of these people now knows how and what to choose, nor does he know how to defend and validate his choice.

When you think about it, it's all well and good living a life so clean, it would even put a saint to shame, but sure god knows you might as well live it up, enjoy your few cigarettes, your few drinks, your desserts, or whatever your vice may be. Death doesn't discriminate or favour those who live healthy lives. It will take anyone, anytime, so you might as well go with a smile on your face.

If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb. It would do the same damage to the Church’s operation,” Sipe said. “And it’s very much against the tradition of the Church. Many saints had a gay orientation. And many popes had gay orientations. Discriminating against orientation is not going to solve the problem.

Chapter 20-Part 2 "The hardest part of childhood with parents with these and are criminalised, isn’t necessarily life inside your home, it's how you are treated and mistreated by those outside your home. It’s the ways in which people with authority disrespect, demean, and dehumanise your whole family. In childhood I am of my family, they are of me. We are treated collectively and collectively we are assessed to be worthless.

Having been historically dispossessed and discriminated against, African American and Indigenous communities, continue to face higher rates of poverty and crime, and struggle disproportionately for access to quality education, healthy food, secure housing and affordable healthcare. The United States has the highest incarceration rates in the world. And even though five times as many white people use drugs as African Americans, African Americans are sent to prison for drug offenses at 10 times the rate of whites.

When are we going to wake up and call it what it is? They degrade blacks; instead of getting sprayed by a water hose, we are now getting sprayed with bullets! Instead of getting a peaceful night’s rest, our doors are getting kicked in! Oh, and instead of suffocating us with their white sheets or tying a noose around our necks and hanging us from a tree, they suffocate us by putting their knee on our neck instead. Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.

81. “When are we going to wake up and call it what it is? They degrade blacks; instead of getting sprayed by a water hose, we are now getting sprayed with bullets! Instead of getting a peaceful night’s rest, our doors are getting kicked in! Oh, and instead of suffocating us with their white sheets or tying a noose around our necks and hanging us from a tree, they suffocate us by putting their knee on our neck instead. Let’s keep it real here. Who are we fooling? Racism has still has a heartbeat, and I do not see it dying anytime soon.

I hear a lot of black dudes call each other niggers or nigga. Why? Then we as blacks are upset when another race calls us the ‘N’ word. Do we really have the right to be upset? No, we do not because we can’t expect other races not to call us the ‘N’ word if we call each other the ‘N’ word. So I say once again, and I cannot say this enough. We should respect ourselves and each other. We should be ashamed to use the word … the nickname if you will … that white people made up for us. It is not okay for a black person to use the word Nigger or Nigga so loosely!

Woke is not merely a state of awareness; it is a force that dismantles the walls of ignorance and complacency. It is the unwavering commitment to truth, justice, and equality, igniting a flame within the hearts of those who seek a better world. To be woke is to rise above the shadows of indifference and confront the uncomfortable realities that permeate our society. It is to acknowledge the deep-rooted biases, systemic injustices, and the pervasive discrimination that persistently plague our communities. Woke is the courage to challenge the status quo, to question the narratives that uphold oppression, and to demand accountability from those who hold power. It is the unwavering belief that every voice matters, regardless of race, gender, or social standing. Woke is the realization that progress requires action, not just words. It is the recognition that the fight for justice extends beyond hashtags and viral trends. It is a constant pursuit of education, empathy, and empathy and the willingness to stand up for what is right, even in the face of adversity. Woke is a movement that refuses to be silenced. It is the collective power of individuals coming together to amplify marginalized voices, to challenge the systems that perpetuate inequality, and to build a future where everyone has an equal opportunity to thrive. Being woke is not an endpoint; it is a lifelong journey. It is the commitment to unlearn and relearn, to listen and understand, and to continuously evolve in the pursuit of a more inclusive and equitable world. So, let us embrace our woke-ness, not as a trend or a buzzword, but as a guiding principle in our lives. Let us use our awareness to foster meaningful change, to uplift the marginalized, and to build bridges where there were once divides. For in our collective awakening lies the power to reshape the world, to create a future where justice, compassion, and equality prevail. Let us be woke, let us be bold, and let us be the catalysts of a brighter tomorrow.

The classics, and their position of prerogative in the scheme of education to which the higher seminaries of learning cling with such a fond predilection, serve to shape the intellectual attitude and lower the economic efficiency of the new learned generation. They do this not only by holding up an archaic ideal of manhood, but also by the discrimination which they inculcate with respect to the reputable and the disreputable in knowledge. This result is accomplished in two ways: (1) by inspiring an habitual aversion to what is merely useful, as contrasted with what is merely honorific in learning, and so shaping the tastes of the novice that he comes in good faith to find gratification of his tastes solely, or almost solely, in such exercise of the intellect as normally results in no industrial or social gain; and (2) by consuming the learner's time and effort in acquiring knowledge which is of no use, except in so far as this learning has by convention become incorporated into the sum of learning required of the scholar, and has thereby affected the terminology and diction employed in the useful branches of knowledge.

My interest in comics was scribbled over with a revived, energized passion for clothes, records, and music. I'd wandered in late to the punk party in 1978, when it was already over and the Sex Pistols were history. I'd kept my distance during the first flush of the new paradigm, when the walls of the sixth-form common room shed their suburban-surreal Roger Dean Yes album covers and grew a fresh new skin of Sex Pistols pictures, Blondie pinups, Buzzcocks collages, Clash radical chic. As a committed outsider, I refused to jump on the bandwagon of this new musical fad, which I'd written off as some kind of Nazi thing after seeing a photograph of Sid Vicious sporting a swastika armband. I hated the boys who'd cut their long hair and binned their crappy prog albums in an attempt to join in. I hated pretty much everybody without discrimination, in one way or another, and punk rockers were just something else to add to the shit list. But as we all know, it's zealots who make the best converts. One Thursday night, I was sprawled on the settee with Top of the Pops on the telly when Poly Styrene and her band X-Ray Spex turned up to play their latest single: an exhilarating sherbet storm of raw punk psychedelia entitled "The Day the World Turned Day-Glo" By the time the last incandescent chorus played out, I was a punk. I had always been a punk. I would always be a punk. Punk brought it all together in one place for me: Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius novels were punk. Peter Barnes's The Ruling Class, Dennis Potter, and The Prisoner were punk too. A Clockwork Orange was punk. Lindsay Anderson's If ... was punk. Monty Python was punk. Photographer Bob Carlos Clarke's fetish girls were punk. Comics were punk. Even Richmal Crompton's William books were punk. In fact, as it turned out, pretty much everything I liked was punk. The world started to make sense for the first time since Mosspark Primary. New and glorious constellations aligned in my inner firmament. I felt born again. The do-your-own-thing ethos had returned with a spit and a sneer in all those amateurish records I bought and treasured-even though I had no record player. Singles by bands who could often barely play or sing but still wrote beautiful, furious songs and poured all their young hearts, experiences, and inspirations onto records they paid for with their dole money. If these glorious fuckups could do it, so could a fuckup like me. When Jilted John, the alter ego of actor and comedian Graham Fellows, made an appearance on Top of the Pops singing about bus stops, failed romance, and sexual identity crisis, I was enthralled by his shameless amateurism, his reduction of pop music's great themes to playground name calling, his deconstruction of the macho rock voice into the effeminate whimper of a softie from Sheffield. This music reflected my experience of teenage life as a series of brutal setbacks and disappointments that could in the end be redeemed into art and music with humor, intelligence, and a modicum of talent. This, for me, was the real punk, the genuine anticool, and I felt empowered. The losers, the rejected, and the formerly voiceless were being offered an opportunity to show what they could do to enliven a stagnant culture. History was on our side, and I had nothing to lose. I was eighteen and still hadn't kissed a girl, but perhaps I had potential. I knew I had a lot to say, and punk threw me the lifeline of a creed and a vocabulary-a soundtrack to my mission as a comic artist, a rough validation. Ugly kids, shy kids, weird kids: It was okay to be different. In fact, it was mandatory.

Some raised a more practical concern, arguing that if Rome really wanted to empty seminaries of gay men—a proposal under consideration at the Vatican—it would face more empty rectories and more barren altars. Some Church experts estimate that from 30 percent to fully one half of the forty-five thousand U.S. priests are gay. “If they were to eliminate all those who were homosexually oriented, the number would be so staggering that it would be like an atomic bomb. It would do the same damage to the Church’s operation,” Sipe said. “And it’s very much against the tradition of the Church. Many saints had a gay orientation. And many popes had gay orientations. Discriminating against orientation is not going to solve the problem.” But the issue was now on the table. At the Vatican meeting, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory of Belleville, Illinois, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, told reporters that he was concerned about the increasing number of gays in the priesthood. “One of the difficulties we do face in seminary life or recruitment is when there does exist a homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual men think twice” about joining the priesthood for fear that they’ll be harassed. “It is an ongoing struggle. It is most importantly a struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men [and] that the candidates that we receive are healthy in every possible way—psychologically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually.” And Cardinal Adam J. Maida of Detroit argued that clergy sexual abuse is “not truly a pedophilia-type problem but a homosexual-type problem.… We have to look at this homosexual element as it exists, to what extent it is operative in our seminaries and our priesthood and how to address it.” Bishops need to “cope with and address” the extent of a homosexual presence in Catholic seminaries, he said. Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua of Philadelphia said he wouldn’t let gay men become priests. “We feel that a person who is homosexually oriented is not a suitable candidate for the priesthood even if he has never committed any homosexual act,” he said.