We Americans have a chance to become someday a nation in which all racial stocks and classes can exist in their own selfhoods, but meet on a basis of respect and equality and live together, socially, economically, and politically.
Interpretation
The quote expresses a vision for a future America where diverse racial and social groups coexist with mutual respect and equality.
Shirley Chisholm highlights an aspirational future for the United States, emphasizing the potential for a multicultural society where individuals from different racial and social backgrounds can maintain their unique identities while also interacting on equal footing. This vision underscores the importance of respect and equity in social, economic, and political spheres, suggesting that true unity can be achieved through acceptance and collaboration among diverse groups.
In practice
This quote can be used in a speech about racial equality and coexistence.
I was the first American citizen to be elected to Congress in spite of the double drawbacks of being female and having skin darkened by melanin. When you put it that way, it sounds like a foolish reason for fame. In a just and free society it would be foolish. That I am a national figure because I was the first person in 192 years to be at once a congressman, black and a woman proves, I think, that our society is not yet either just or free.
I stand before you today to repudiate the ridiculous notion that the American people will not vote for qualified candidates simply because he is not white or because she is not a male.
The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the doctor says, 'It's a girl.'
I know that millions of Americans from all walks of life agree with me that leadership does not mean putting the ear to the ground to follow public opinion, but to have the vision of what is necessary and the courage to make it possible.
Of course laws will not eliminate prejudice from the hearts of human beings. But that is no reason to allow prejudice to continue to be enshrined in our laws - to perpetuate injustice through inaction.
I want history to remember me... not as the first black woman to have made a bid for the presidency of the United States, but as a black woman who lived in the 20th century and who dared to be herself. I want to be remembered as a catalyst for change in America.
This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.
When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can't make them change if they don't want to, just like when they do want to, you can't stop them.
My hope is that the corona crisis will help bring us into a new age of cooperation and solidarity and a realization that we're in this together.
The map of the world is always changing; sometimes it happens overnight. All it takes is the blink of an eye, the squeeze of a trigger, a sudden gust of wind. Wake up and your life is perched on a precipice; fall asleep, it swallows you whole.
What I've seen, and the reactions from 'The Final Quarter' and 'The Australian Dream', is that a lot more people are more willing to share their stories around racism.
Great cultural changes begin in affectation and end in routine.
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