We really suffer from a hot-take disease, wanting to be the first one who has the hottest take.
W. Kamau BellRead
This is a country that was founded on racism. It was built on racism. It still continues to thrive through wealth disparity, and housing disparity is all built on the backs of racism.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the pervasive and foundational nature of racism in the country's history and ongoing inequalities.
W. Kamau Bell's quote highlights the deep-rooted and systemic nature of racism in the foundations of the country. It suggests that racism is not just a historical issue but continues to manifest in contemporary societal structures, particularly in wealth and housing disparities, suggesting that these inequalities are sustained by the same racist foundations that once built the nation.
In practice
During a panel discussion on social justice.
We really suffer from a hot-take disease, wanting to be the first one who has the hottest take.
People born in Puerto Rico are U.S. citizens - except for the teeny, tiny, mind-boggling fact that if you live in Puerto Rico, you are not allowed to cast a vote in the election for president. That tiny fact starts to get bigger when you realize that electing our own leaders is the whole reason that we have a country in the first place.
I've turned the annoying questions that white people ask into a career, so I understand that's where I live.
In communities of color, such as Ferguson, it often feels like the police are protecting the white community from us instead of protecting our communities from the criminal element.
We can't throw the worst part of racism into the dustbin of history.
When we let cops talk about themselves as a separate community, then we are letting cops wall themselves off from the rest of us. We don't generally do that with any other jobs. We don't talk about the barista community or the Wal-Mart greeter community.
Watch the clouds. They will teach you about the world of form.
The special virtue of freedom is not that it makes you richer and more powerful but that it gives you more time to understand what it means to be alive.
We are born one time only, we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we've gained from the previous one. We leave childhood without knowing what youth is, we marry without knowing what it is to be married, and even when we enter old age, we don't know what it is we're heading for: the old are innocent children innocent of thier old age. In that sense, man's world is the planet of inexperience.
Godliness is more easily feigned in words than in actions
I feel most alive, most electric with faith, breath, and courage, when I think of God as a current that runs through all that is. Not by will or by choice. Not as a benediction but because there are laws even God must obey.
My continent knows more about me than I do myself.
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