The death penalty is an inhumane punishment that disproportionately violates the human rights of Black, brown, indigenous, and other marginalized people.
Cori BushRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote highlights the struggles of unhoused individuals who work hard yet face financial instability and barriers to essential services.
Cori Bush emphasizes the harsh reality that many unhoused people are engaged in full-time work but still cannot earn enough to meet basic living standards. Despite their efforts, systemic barriers such as inadequate wages and limited access to mental health services or substance use treatment make it incredibly difficult for them to achieve stability and improve their circumstances.
Themes
UnhousedPovertyWagesMental HealthStability
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about social justice, you could use this quote to illustrate the importance of fair wages.
More from Cori Bush
All quotes →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.
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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Good care is taken that each state shall have its prisons . . . and other asylums; but not one building is erected nor one law enforced that would teach the people how not to contribute to these over-crowded receptacles of human misery . . . . All of our politicians are ready to deal with the effects, but not one of them is brave enough to penetrate the substratum of society and deal with the cause.
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Black women usually don't get the luxury of faking their way through life and still succeeding, but when a white guy does it, he may even get to be the president of the United States.
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The only news most people ever hear about the inner city comes from grim headlines; the only residents they can name are characters on 'The Wire.' Of course, ignorance of a community doesn't stop outsiders from having opinions about it or passing laws that govern it.
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Do not romanticize the poor...We are all people, human beings subject to the same temptations and faults as all others. Our poverty damages our dignity.
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I wanted to have a body of work behind me before I wrote about racism.
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There are huge divorces and divides and chasms in black America between the have-gots and the have-nots, between the monied and the poor, between the educated and the non-educated. And there are huge and growing chasms daily. And I want to say that it's not simply about generation. It's about genre.
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