Many unhoused people work full time but earn starvation, unlivable wages. Some struggle to access mental health services or substance use treatment, making earning a consistent and stable wage nearly impossible.
Cori BushRead
By expanding the legal authority of law enforcement agencies - without addressing the infiltration of white supremacy within law enforcement - we are expanding the capacity of white supremacy itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that merely giving law enforcement more power without addressing internal issues of white supremacy can worsen the problem.
Cori Bush articulates a critical perspective on law enforcement reforms, highlighting that increasing the legal powers of these agencies without tackling systemic issues, particularly the presence of white supremacy, may inadvertently empower those very ideologies. This statement urges a holistic approach to law enforcement reform that includes not just authority but also accountability and integrity from within.
Themes
Law EnforcementWhite SupremacyReformJusticePowerSystemic Issues
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion panel about police reform.
More from Cori Bush
All quotes βThe death penalty is an inhumane punishment that disproportionately violates the human rights of Black, brown, indigenous, and other marginalized people.
Cori BushRead
We don't live in a world that nurtures and cares for Black girls like me. And if the world doesn't care about a Black girl like me, then what will happen to our Black babies who grow up to become Black children and Black adults?
Cori BushRead
This stereotype that Black and brown boys and girls are dangerous or threatening has normalized systems of trauma: the cradle to prison pipeline, foster care, youth detention, and being tried and sentenced as adults. We treat trauma with more trauma.
Cori BushRead
Being unhoused in America must no longer be viewed as an individual shortcoming, but rather as an unacceptable, life-threatening policy failure.
Cori BushRead
We treat Black and brown kids who can't vote yet, can't join the military, can't rent a car or even buy a lottery ticket - like adults in our criminal legal system. We deprive them of their joy and their youth. Children who deserve to live rich and abundant lives.
Cori BushRead
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Drugs is a government game, Bilal. A way to rob us of our best black men, our army. Everyone who plays the game loses. Then they get you right back where we started, in slavery! Then they get to say "This time you did it to yourself." I won't play that game.
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Their suffering is intense, widespread, expanding, systematic and socially sanctioned. And the victims are unable to organize in defence of their own interests.
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The March on Washington was a March for Jobs and Freedom. There are still too many people who are unemployed or underemployed in America - they're black, white, Latino, Native American and Asian American.
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The people who serve your fast food lunch or your after-work drinks deserve dignity - and if big companies don't start paying them enough for a decent standard of living, they have the power to close these businesses. But no one goes on strike lightly.
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Racism is a way to gain economic advantage at the expense of others. Slavery and plantations may be gone, but racism still allows us to regard those who may keep us from financial gain as less than equals.
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