Like every New Yorker, I know this place is magic. I know this place is amazing. I know that we have come back time and time again from a great recession, from high crime rates, from 9/11, from crisis after crisis.
Maya WileyRead
My mother was this White woman from Texas, from a racist town raised to believe in the inferiority of others by her community, not necessarily by her parents, but certainly by the community around her. And she fled it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a mother's courage to escape a prejudiced environment to seek a better, more accepting life.
In this quote, Maya Wiley describes the background of her mother, who grew up in a racially prejudiced town in Texas. Despite being raised in a community that instilled beliefs in the inferiority of others, her mother demonstrated remarkable courage by choosing to flee that environment, suggesting a strong desire for change and a rejection of societal norms that promote racism.
Themes
MotherRacismCourageCommunityChange
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about overcoming adversity, you might reference this quote to illustrate the power of personal choice against societal pressures.
More from Maya Wiley
All quotes →And if you want partnerships that focus on hard problems and real solutions, then pick a Black woman. Because that's what we do every single day and in every single way.
Maya WileyRead
When Superstorm Sandy churned up fourteen-foot walls of water that slammed New York's coastal communities in October 2012, they also washed away any false notions we had that we care sufficiently for poor people.
Maya WileyRead
I am a Black woman raised by parents who were active in the civil-rights movement.
Maya WileyRead
In fact, black students with college degrees are twice as likely to be unemployed as white students with college degrees. So, to say there there is not an issue for black Americans and Latinos in terms of the opportunity that college is supposed to create would be wrong.
Maya WileyRead
We used to watch my father, who was a civil-rights activist, get arrested on TV sometimes, and we never knew if he was going to be home for dinner.
Maya WileyRead
Similar quotes
I have never been sorry when I stood for what was right-even against severe criticism.
Richard G. ScottRead
We fight not to enslave, but to set a country free, and to make room upon the earth for honest men to live in.
Thomas PaineRead
I am an opponent of war and of war preparations and an opponent of universal military training and conscription; but entirely apart from that issue, I hold that segregation in any part of the body politic is an act of slavery and an act of war.
Bayard RustinRead
Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?... It is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doers to light... My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.
Anna SewellRead
Oh, I can't play soccer, and I'm not a great swimmer. I won't drown, but you won't see me doing laps in a pool.
Michelle ObamaRead
Even in my really bad, drugged-out days, I didn't go away. I still toured, still did interviews. I never gave up the fight. That's why I'm who I am today, because I didn't leave. And I think I made the right choice.
Stevie NicksRead