Stacey Abrams Quotes

Because I learned long ago that winning doesn’t always mean you get the prize. Sometimes you get progress, and that counts.

Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations.

Never tell yourself no. Let someone else do it.

Voting is a constitutional right in the United States, a right that has been reiterated three separate times via constitutional amendment.

It’s frustrating to realize we’re taught to be humble in a way that men are not.

We are strongest when we see the most vulnerable in our society, bear witness to their struggles, and then work to create systems to make it better

Yet, from limiting original voting rights to white men, to the elitist and racist origins of the Electoral College, American democracy has always left people out of participation, by design.

Because I suddenly saw opportunity where I had never been brave enough to look before, and I found that failure wasn’t fatal, that otherness held an extraordinary power for clarity and invention.

Our priorities should ideally engage heart and head.

The best allies own their privilege not as a badge of honor but as a reminder to be constantly listening and learning to become better at offering support to others.

What’s not right is giving credence to bad actions, and thereby becoming complicit.

Voter suppression works its might by first tripping and causing to stumble the unwanted voter, then by convincing those who see the obstacle course to forfeit the race without even starting to run.

Being a token is real, and sometimes the urge to take a backseat so we don’t have to be “the one” is tempting. But denying fear of disappointing everyone to avoid responsibility for everyone doesn’t do anyone any good either.

At its most complex, ambition should be an animation of soul. Not simply a job, but a disquiet that requires you to take action.

I confronted the expected stereotypes by knowing what they were and building an alternate narrative about myself.

Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations. Its cool, rational precision urges you to believe that it makes sense to limit yourself. And when your goal means you’ll be the first, or one of the few, as I desired, logic tells you that if it were possible, someone else would have done it by now.

From the moment I enter a room, I am clear about how I intend to be treated and how I intend to engage. I do not tell self-deprecating jokes about my race or gender, though I will do so about my personal idiosyncrasies. I can be charmingly humble or playfully self-effacing without pandering to stereotypes in order to make others comfortable. For example, my attire, my hairstyle, even my presentation style, reflect me rather than aping the behavior of others. I know that when I offer criticism of men in the workplace, I may be seen as a man-hater. I know because I am not married, I may be seen as a lesbian. I know because I will never be less than curvaceous and wear my hair natural

Reputation was all you had when you’d been born without the relationships.

Voting rights are the most basic tenet of our democracy, and the bare minimum one should expect from the government.

The right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to direct the course of history are markers of power.

Don’t stand there holding the ball if a freight train’s headed for you. Can’t play in the second quarter if you’re dead.

Money and power make people irrational.

Arguments continue over what constitutes true “identity politics” as a philosophical construct, a public policy imperative, or a flawed means of picking candidates based solely on external characteristics rather than the candidate’s own merit. Rather than engaging in a false choice, I opt to short-circuit the debate with a more simplistic view: identity is real and necessary and intertwined in our politics in such a way that there is no going back.

Abroad, authoritarians and dictators win elections and reshape democracies into parodies of freedom. The same world leaders who once feared disappointing American leaders now use our compromised elections to justify their own behavior.

No other right guaranteed by our constitution permits the loss of a right for failure to use it—to wit, I don't lose my Second Amendment right if I choose not to go hunting and I still have freedom of religion if I skip church now and then.

The voting system is not just political; it is economic and social and educational. It is omnipresent and omniscient. And it is fallible. Yet, when a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again.

Single-strand identities do not exist in a household, let alone in a nation. When America is at its best, we acknowledge the complexity of our societies and the complicating reality of how we experience this country—and its obstacles. Yet we never lose sight of the fact that we all want the same thing. We want education. We want economic security. We want health care. Identity politics pushes leaders to understand that because of race, class, gender, sexual orientation/gender identity, and national origin, people confront obstacles that stem from these identities. Successful leaders who wish to engage the broadest coalition of voters have to demonstrate that they understand that the barriers are not uniform and, moreover, that they have plans to tackle these impediments. The greatest politicians display both of these capacities, and they never forget that the destination—regardless of identity—is the same: safety, security, and opportunity.

To put the gap in stark racial terms, in America in 2013, the average wealth per household was $81,000. But averages have highs and lows. When you disaggregate the numbers, white families average $142,000 in wealth, Latinos come in at $13,700, and black families bring up the rear at $11,000.

Full citizenship rights are the bare minimum one should expect from the government. Yet, for two-thirds of our history, full citizenship was denied to those who built this country from theory to life. African slaves and Chinese workers and Native American environmentalists and Latino gauchos and Irish farmers—and half the population: women. Over the course of our history, these men and women, these patriots and defenders of liberty, have been denied the most profound currency of citizenship: power. Because, let’s be honest, that is the core of this fight. The right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to direct the course of history are markers of power. In the United States, democracy makes politics one of the key levers to exercising power. So, it should shock none of us that the struggle for dominion over our nation’s future and who will participate is simply a battle for American power.

Voter suppression works its might by first tripping and causing to stumble the unwanted voter, then by convincing those who see the obstacle

Real connections grow out of shared moments, out of being able to ask for aid, and by asking "How can I help you?

…any voter denied a say in democracy has been harmed, and a remedy is in order regardless of the effect on an electoral outcome.

The goal is to stretch ourselves, to explore our potential, even when we know we won’t be first or the best.

No one born into the minority has the luxury of giving up, even if we do not win enough of the time.

Not yet.

When we refuse to name our obstacles, we can never find a way around them. Worse, we accept their inevitability, believing we deserve what we get.

The vibrance of our identity politics reaffirms the complexity of our nation and the underpinning of our founding.

good government should be a tool that helps where it can and gets out of the way when it should. It must work for everyone, protect our investments, and defend the civil rights of all.

Americans like to think that we're invulnerable, but we are not. Our systems are not. Our democracy may be resilient, but it is also fragile. And that fragility is what is at stake now.

Moreover, because only Maine and Vermont allow the incarcerated to vote, prisoners in every other state have no political voice. To put a finer point on it, America’s mass incarceration has led to thousands of black and Latino bodies from Democratic-leaning areas being counted in rural white communities that are typically Republican, where most of the penal facilities are located.

Knowing the law isn’t about the school. It’s about the mind. The heart. About understanding what the law intends as much as reading beneath what it says. Knowing how to find one’s way to the truth.

Why American history? Other nations have achieved greatness with less hubris and narcissism." "Agreed. But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism. Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts." Wynn continued to watch her, with what Avery perceived as an ounce of amusement on his face. "A nation of favor and folly, one might say. Where justice is known but rarely seen.

I embrace identity politics because for the marginalized, the disadvantaged, and the minority groups still grappling for purchase in our politics, identity is the strongest defense against invisibility.

No, [I'm not an optimist]. I am an ameliorist, which is something I made up. I believe that the glass is half full. It’s just probably poisoned. And so my job is always to be on the hunt for the antidote.

Difference is real, and to acknowledge such does no harm to the American identity as a whole. The vibrance of our identity politics reaffirms the complexity of our nation and the underpinning of our founding.

The United States must no longer be a patchwork of good, bad, and worst states for voters, a degradation of democracy based on state lines and zip codes. Being an eligible citizen should be sufficient for full participation,

Race and sexual orientation shared common threats, but not identical ones, and when she stood too firmly on one side, she stood accused of ignoring the other. I watched with admiration as Simone came to the conclusion that the

Voter suppression no longer announces itself with a document clearly labeled LITERACY TEST or POLL TAX. Instead, the attacks on voting rights feel like user error—and that’s intentional. When the system fails us, we can rail and try to force change. But if the problem is individual, we are trained to hide our mistakes and ignore the concerns. The fight to defend the right to vote begins with understanding where we’ve been and knowing where we are now.

Identity politics forces those who ask for our support to do their jobs: To understand that the self-made man got zoned into a good school district and received a high-quality education, one that wouldn’t have existed if his zip code changed by a digit. To recognize that the woman on welfare with three kids is the product of divorce in a state where she risks losing food stamps if her low-wage job pays her too much. Or that the homeless junkie is an Iraq War veteran who was in the National Guard but lost his job due to multiple deployments and didn’t qualify for full VA care. And that the laborer is a migrant farmworker who overstayed his visa to care for his American-born children. Single-strand identities do not exist in a household, let alone in a nation.

We are, by our natures, often required to manufacture our own breaks, identify new openings even before others know they exist. The best hack is to know this is the case, accept it, and move on, prepared to take full advantage. And then do it all over again.

Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I’d never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs—expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both.

I revered the civil rights movement and appreciated the laws that granted us the right to ride buses, to sit at lunch counters, to cast ballots. But the slowness of real change fueled the riots’ intensity, from coast to coast. Decades later, inequality still ravaged poor and black communities. Then toss in the continued international struggle to end apartheid, the skyrocketing incarceration rates that scooped up too many of black folks’ cousins, and a youth poverty rate that defied the wealth of the era. I knew the truth behind their rage.

Full citizenship rights are the bare minimum one should expect from the government. Yet, for two-thirds of our history, full citizenship was denied to those who built this country from theory to life. African slaves and Chinese workers and Native American environmentalists and Latino gauchos and Irish farmers—and half the population: women.

and over the centuries, we clawed out access to the ballot for people of color through the Fifteenth Amendment, women in the Nineteenth Amendment, and young voters in the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. But each of those amendments contained a loophole for suppression: leaving implementation to the states, particularly the ones most hostile to inclusion.

Howard Wynn did not suffer boredom or mediocrity well. He felt equally dismissive of willful ignorance—his description of the modern press—and smug stupidity, his bon mot for politicians. To his mind, they were a gang of vapid and arrogant thugs all, who greedily snatched their information from one another like disappearing crumbs as society spiraled merrily toward hell. With the current crop of pundits, bureaucrats, and hired guns in charge, America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

When people self-select out of participation, that is actually a much more effective consequence because increasing difficulty is one thing, but making participation seem irrelevant has a much more pervasive and permanent effect. In a putative democracy where the majority of the minority decides their voices no longer matter, we are in a dire circumstance.

Victory must begin to mean more than winning a single election. Our obligation, in Georgia and across the nation, is to seize the high road by changing how we campaign and to whom. Demography is not destiny; it’s opportunity. We have to expand our vision of who belongs in the big tent of progress, invest in their inclusion, and talk to them about what’s at stake.

A Dreamer—a young person brought to the United States without documentation—asked me about her future after high school. She had applied to colleges in state, but Georgia’s rules forbade her from being accepted to the flagship universities, despite her qualifications. Other state schools were required to charge her out-of-state tuition, at costs that could be nearly four times as high.

Any lasting solutions come solely from the U.S. Constitution, the highest legal bar imaginable; and over the centuries, we clawed out access to the ballot for people of color through the Fifteenth Amendment, women in the Nineteenth Amendment, and young voters in the Twenty-Sixth Amendment. But each of those amendments contained a loophole for suppression: leaving implementation to the states, particularly the ones most hostile to inclusion.

People already in power almost never have to think about whether they belong in the room, much less if they would be listened to once inside. These men—and they are usually men and typically white—do not have to grapple with low expectations based on gender or race or class. Ambition for them begins with reminiscences of old times and older friendships or newer alliances. The ends have already been decided, with only the means to be discussed.

Be fearless. Be tenacious. Go after what you want. Be a leader. Take control. Don't like how things are managed? Change the status quo. Be a disruptor. Galvanize, inspire, lead, get results. Stand resolute in the face of critics, detractors, naysayers. Their no is your yes. Make a difference. Change the narrative. Be a monumental success and a paradigm for forward, sometimes unorthodox, always creative thinking. This is what makes you a trailblazer, a standard bearer and history maker!! Oh, unless you are a powerful, black woman (or simply a WOMAN)with a voice that moves the needle. Then, you are a troublemaker, angry, stupid, menopausal, looking for attention? Women don't owe anyone an apology or explanation for being everything those part of an unevolved faction of society believes is only reserved for men. Work with us and be great, or get out of our way so we can continue what we started a lifetime ago. Proud of you Stacey Abrams and of all women who refuse to be relegated to a status of mediocrity. "Still, I rise!

Saving democracy is not an overblown call to action—we are in trouble. The changing demography of America speaks to more than whether Democrats or Republicans control political decisions. Young people will be financially responsible for the largest population of elderly Americans in our history, but without the resources necessary to provide for them. The increased frequency of extreme climate events costs billions of dollars that will not be spent on education or infrastructure. The past fifty years of public policy toward communities of color have consequences. For decades, black and brown children have had higher dropout rates, higher incarceration rates, and lower earning power. This very same population continues to grow in size and political might, but America has largely abandoned our tradition of civic education to help guide their decisions. And international crises will demand American attention, but without a cogent and consensus-driven electorate, we will likely be paralyzed by inaction or stupid decision making. We

Every person comes into the public discourse with histories and challenges. The worst political spaces are the ones where voters are told that everyone has the exact same narrative and everyone faces the exact same obstacles. The myth of the self-made man coexists with the stereotype of the welfare queen and the homeless junkie and the Spanish-speaking laborer. When political leaders homogenize our experiences or, worse, reduce them to insults or aberrations, they evade the hard work of understanding whom they represent.

Those who rage against and work against expanding the electorate know what's at stake. The goal is to block access to the ballot and to policy making because letting the agitators inside might yield new laws to remedy inequality or injustice. The fear of these elected officials is a loss of power, grounded in an assortment of causes like racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, or an inchoate desire to keep the world as it was when they sat at the peak of influence. They forget that the bygone days of political tranquility never truly existed—the agitators simply hadn't amassed sufficient power to be heard. But they are getting closer to it every day.

However, across the country, we witnessed a “power grab” from the minority desperate to hold on to power. The examples of this abound: Native Americans living on reservations in North Dakota were told that in order to vote, they had to have street addresses—where none existed. In Mississippi, impoverished elderly folks who needed an absentee ballot had to pay for a notary public to submit the ballot—resulting in a new-fashioned poll tax. In Georgia, tens of thousands of people of color had their applications for registration held up because of typographical errors in government databases and a failed system called “exact match.” Of the 53,000 applications blocked by this process, 80 percent were from people of color. Voter

only thing worse than a tattletale was a person too afraid to tell the truth.

One of these indignities she could take—but not all of them.

Betty felt blood and pain, and for a moment, she felt his grip relax as he shifted to hold her arms in one hand. She started to scream again, but he shoved her head against the post a second time. When she struggled, kicking back at him, he trapped her legs with his and pushed something inside her mouth with his free hand.

Can I have your name, please?” “Celeste,” she whispered as the name popped into her head. “Ma’am?” Avery blinked. “What?” “I asked for your name, but I didn’t hear what you said.” He held up a cardboard cup and a marker. “Can you spell Selst for me?

Instead, she carved her way straight up the middle and paved her legacy with concurrences and dissents that drew neither attention nor censure.

I realize this isn’t much to go on, Agent Lee.’ He thought for a moment. ‘True, but the last time you happened across a murder, the president lost his job. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Go to hell.” “Eventually,” he allowed. “Have a good night, Avery.

I have to speak up because silence is not only dangerous, it is corrosive. When we refuse to name our obstacles, we can never find a way around them. Worse, we accept their inevitability, believing we deserve what we get.

happen. Michael activated the Bluetooth feature

to rewrite the rules of power, never allow the position to limit your sphere of influence and control.

Of course, he did. Because people now think she’s Trixie Belden.” At the blank looks from the men in the room, she mockingly translated, “A more mature version of Nancy Drew.

Apparently, while stationed in Afghanistan, he met a group of scientists working on a special project for a company in India. They’d posited that biogenetic weapons could be developed to target religious groups based on common ancestry. Vance brought it to his superiors; and six weeks later, he was stateside with a military pension and an honorable discharge.

Howard Wynn did not suffer boredom or mediocrity well. He felt equally dismissive of willful ignorance—his description of the modern press—and smug stupidity, his bon mot for politicians. To

Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts.

Why American history? Other nations have achieved greatness with less hubris and narcissism.” “Agreed. But America is a contradictory and precocious country, sir. We have, in a very short period of time, managed to commit venal sins against our own people and offer the world repeat examples of exceptionalism. Americans are greedy, brilliant, ambitious, and compassionate. We like to remind everyone about our genius, and yet our leaders make fun of smart people. In less than two centuries, we took over more than half a continent, placed a man on the moon, and invented the Clapper. I enjoyed the contrasts.” Wynn

I worked for Homeland Security, Avery. We watch everything. Usually, though, no one watches us.

Despite years in American schools, she still barely understood the deep divisions between the Left and the Right in a country with so little to argue over.

The ancestry tests are superficial, but they use a basic premise. The Y chromosome is transmitted from father to son largely without mutations, and it escapes recombination, so it has the best ability to show lineage.” Noah quipped, “Giving new meaning to ‘like father, like son.’ 

Fair Fight, Fair Count,

he

Despite knowing how vulnerable technology can be, bureaucrats placed their faith in the myth of privacy.

anyone who has watched these mergers in the past knows that what gets promised doesn’t necessarily happen.

you will find it where it lies, in the space between.

Avery had spent too much time in D.C. to be surprised, but the clay feet of America’s political leaders still hurt.

America was destined to repeat the cycles of intellectual torpor that toppled Rome and Greece and Mali and the Incas and every empire that stumbled into short-lived, debauched existence. Show man ignoble work and easy sex, and there went civilization.

The EAVS data highlighted the top culprits for rejected absentee ballots7: Arizona: 10,769 rejected Florida: 21,973 rejected Georgia: 13,677 rejected Ohio: 10,189 rejected

Worse, because the rules differ from state to state, and the implementation changes from county to county, access to democracy becomes a lottery of location.

Support Fair Fight 2020, Stacey Abrams’s organization to protect voting rights.

I am not calling for violent revolt here. We’ve done that twice in our nation’s history—to claim our freedom from tyranny and when we fought a civil war to recognize (at least a little) the humanity of blacks held in bondage. Yet, as millions are stripped of their rights, we live out the policy consequences, from lethal pollution running through poor communities to kindergartners practicing active shooter drills taught with nursery rhymes. I question what remedy remains. The questions that confront me every day are how to defend this sacred right and our democracy, and who will do so.

Today, the ones barring access have shifted from using billy clubs and hoses to using convoluted rules to make it harder to register and stay on the rolls, cast a ballot, or have that ballot counted. To move forward, we must understand the extent to which the shrinking conservative minority will go to create barriers to democracy.

THE MECHANISMS OF voter suppression have transformed access to democracy in ways that continue to reshape not only our partisan politics but the way we live our daily lives. In 2020, a poor woman in South Georgia, miles away from a doctor or a hospital, may discover her pregnancy too late to make a choice. If she makes more than $6,000 per year, she is too rich to qualify for Medicaid and too impoverished to afford anything else because the governor refuses to expand the program.1 If she is black in Georgia, she is three times more likely to die of complications during or after her pregnancy than a white woman in the same position.

Because I learned long ago that winning doesn’t always mean you get the prize. Sometimes you get progress, and that counts. This lesson has been drummed into me for most of my waking life. When it comes to voting in America, I certainly believe.

However logical the argument may sound, though, the reality is that as those outside the norms of politics rise, so too do various rationales for their level of success or defeat. Candidates do not win or lose because they express concern or solidarity for otherness. They win or lose because they ignore it or because some voters are afraid of it. But in the midst of demographic upheaval, the rise of voter suppression and the denouncement of identity politics by the marginalized share common cause. Voter suppression serves to block access for those who are not considered full citizens because of race and status. And rejecting identity politics tells the same groups that their difference not only doesn’t matter, it is harmful to their progress.

Voters will never agree with everything you say, but they get excited to know that a politician is willing to tell them the truth. They want to trust that a candidate won’t suppress their values to try to appeal to a specific group. A voter wants to know that the one in whom they invest their time and trust is an authentic candidate who stands on the values that they hold.

The urgency of fighting the corrosive version of populism the Trump administration has heightened (but not created) in America cannot be reduced to simply defeating him in an election. Under his government, our moral standing has weakened, our rule of law has fractured, and our checks and balances have failed. But we must accept this truth. He is not a singularity, and what he represents will continue even after his defeat, so our ambition must be larger than fighting him.