Best Social Justice Quotes

"The only defense that poor and ordinary people have from very rich, very powerful people is that there's a lot of them, and the only way that they use that defense is by working together."

"What is feminism? I think the most common definition is the social, political, and economic equality between the sexes."

"People's right to exist in a fair society is not actually something that's up for debate."

"Extreme inequality and wealth concentration undermine the ability of humanity to stop climate breakdown."

"Promoting human rights is not just an option for parts of the state; it's a positive obligation, a commitment to not turning a blind eye to breaches of human rights."

"Black empowerment does not mean everybody has a green light to do some Black exploitation."

"We're Black people. We care about schools for our kids, a fair justice system that stops mass incarceration, and we want economic opportunity like everybody else."

"This country owes Black people a debt for 250 years of free labor and another 100 plus years of Jim Crow."

"Instead of focusing on that problem, I'd like to focus on the more morally consistent voices across faiths that have risen to the moment."

"The community and creators are united when it comes to the most important things: the truth, what's right and wrong, speaking for those who can't, uplifting the voices of those that might otherwise go unheard."

"He said: 'I’m not inclined to be a politician. My vocation is as a monk. But as a monk you have to have the courage to speak out against social injustice, the violation of human rights.'"

"Don't let a single child ride past our state house and see that flag and feel pain. Get the flag and get the pole down."

"I believe we are all equal, and everyone deserves a chance."

"When people look at the West Bank today and say this is an apartheid system, it's not just throwing out a word."

"Groups like If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace... being out in the street showing that we see our safety as bound up in fighting for freedom and safety and justice for Palestinians, that actually helps fight anti-Semitism."

"We should all benefit; everybody in this economy should benefit."

"I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues."

"No billionaire should pay a lower federal tax rate than a teacher, a sanitation worker, or a nurse."

"I'm fighting not only for my rights but for everyone's rights."

"It's about making those in power uncomfortable because it is necessary, not just as a [__] the system, but to save lives, trans lives, marginalized lives, human lives."

"Joe Biden's horrible divisive vision for the future includes more people having healthcare, wages being higher, a more equal set of opportunities for people, less income inequality, lower prescription drug cost, a livable planet for our children and grandchildren."

"The biggest work that I think should be being done is trying to get people further away from poverty."

"We shouldn't kick 700,000 people out of their homes."

"The oppressed know that every form of oppression ends, every empire falls."

"Taiwan's young voters fret over material and existential issues; for one key constituency, elections are as much about more material issues such as wages, inflation, energy security, equality, and social justice."

"We owe black people something; we have a legacy of slavery. Immigrants haven't even been in this country."

"Raising the bare minimum bar of what we provide, rights to basic human rights to people, is a better system."

"Social justice and activism really starts in your own house. What are you saying to your children? What are you reading with your children? What kind of conversations are you having with your own children? How you're raising them? What are the core values in your house?"

"He is an activist who cares about our community, cares about black folks, cares about American citizens, speaks truth to power as best as he possibly can."

"Fighting for true marriage equality is the right thing to do, isn't it?"

"If you're trying to fight discrimination, you should be fighting all discrimination."

"Equality requires acknowledgment of inequality."

"The Black Lives Matter movement saying much the same about the horrible ongoing racial inequality and discrimination."

"Poll after poll says the American people believe we should raise the minimum wage to a living wage."

"Affirmative action isn't going to cure insidious bias in this country. What it can do is... it helps us to understand that African-Americans are starting on first base and you're seeing a lot of white Americans just based on things like redlining neighborhoods funding starting on second or third base."

"I think it's a serious offense to weaponize the emotions of the oppressed."

"So until we have equality for all, we do not have equality at all."

"A humanist movement that does not center the least privileged people in our group... is not truly a humanist movement."

"Anger can be channeled toward change. When you see injustice in the world or unfairness or inequality or someone who's hurting, it makes you mad or indignant... you can harness it and you can make change in the world."

"I think it's important to call out fascist behavior, fascist actions."

"Every one of those people is someone who needs special accommodation in a sane world where we reacknowledge the truth of sex."

"Gay rights: What's the argument against it? There is none."

"What happened with George Floyd...was [expletive] up. I don't give a [expletive]."

"Issues of social justice are things that materially affect people's lived experiences of the world."

"Black lives matter... it's an important thing to address."

"These are the inequities we have to fight, these are the values we must rethink, this is the justice that we deserve and we must demand."

"Woke, by definition, means alert to injustice in society, especially racism."

"Cop watching may make us uncomfortable and is clearly controversial, but its unpredictable and unorthodox tactics may be best suited for the task at hand."

"MLK was for racial equality, economic justice, and stood against the exploitation of the poor."

"We do not want sympathy; we do not want pity; we want opportunities."

"Racism is so American that if you challenge racism, you look like you're challenging America."

"The only thing necessary for injustice to continue is for good people to do nothing."

"Being black in America should not be a death sentence."

"Human rights remain central in our collective consideration of next steps, as must the protection of civilians."

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

"You have to do more than just not be racist; you have to be anti-racist."

"We don't need to see looting and crime; we need to keep our eyes on that knee on that neck because it represents everybody else who did not have a camera when they were crushed."

"The death of George Floyd...ignited protests around the world. This for us to stand up in George's name and say, 'get your knee off our necks.'"

"In the 1950s, news cameras expose the brutal horror of legalized racism in the form of segregation. Seventy years later, it is the cell phone camera that has exposed the continuation of violence directed at African-Americans by the police."

"Dr. King has this quote from the letter from Birmingham Jail that I say all the time... 'We will repent not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.'"

"Intersectionality argues that there are multiple aspects to humanity including race, gender, class, sexual orientation, age, body type, and many more."

"Solidarity, compassion, and fairness give everybody a reasonable shot at good life outcomes."

"Freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying, 'Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.' You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'You are free to compete with all the others,' and still justly believe that you have been completely fair."

"Investing $2.5 billion into a specific black community that was torn apart by a highway is a good example of addressing systemic racism."

"I'm not a fan of cannabis... I am an advocate from a social justice perspective."

"The most important part of it is like taking away the stigma and also the harm that prevents young people from attaining their dreams."

"The fight for a more equal and just society is met with fear by some, who feel that when other people have the same opportunities, they are somehow being oppressed."

"I do want to see something as evenly distributed as possible, and that is opportunity...nobody is frozen out."

"It's actually dead simple to provide a left-wing rationale for free speech. It should be self-evident to people who are pursuing social justice that the most potent weapon in their artillery is the ability to communicate. What are people who lack power have other than their ability to speak on their own behalf?"

"We need to do something about cop-on-black violence."

"The real division is the powerful versus the powerless."

"One thing that would be very hard to change my mind on is equal rights."

"Social justice is an indication that everyone is entitled to the exact same standards of treatment regardless of their race, sexuality, whatever."

"It is so obvious to me that these issues of racial, gender, economic, and climate justice are very intertwined."

"You have to end the profiting from mass incarceration, which is that whole system that put the knee on George Floyd's neck."

"In an ideal world, equality is a given right, but as history shows, it's actually more of a privilege."

"Anything you do is a form of oppression until you relinquish all of your power to someone who looks differently to you."

"Social justice is a power grab; that's all it is."

"Social justice is entitlement... but it also gives us a responsibility not just to other people in this country but to the entire world."

"The best program ever devised for real social justice is a school that has a coherent, knowledge-based curriculum that gives less advantaged students the knowledge and the tools that their more advantaged peers pick up at home."

"To the privileged person, equality feels like oppression."

"We need to make health care a right in this country."

"For every specific issue, you must be specific about justice: if it is civil rights justice, social justice, economic justice, cultural justice, or self-determination."

"Social justice has become scientifically illiterate, logically unsound, deeply bigoted, and openly supremacist."

"Social justice is reorganizing and acting upon the power that we have for making positive change."

"Freedom does not wait on the comfort of the bigoted."

"You don't know what it feels like to be persecuted until you're mistreated for some intrinsic quality about you."

"I'm in favor of banning the lottery because in practice all it does is it supplements state taxes by taxing poor people who don't understand probability."

"It's a coming together of players who want the same thing that all of us do: freedoms, equality, tolerance, understanding, and justice for those who have been unjustly treated, discriminated against."

"Every fiber of our Union is being poured into fighting the billionaire class and an economy that enriches people like Donald Trump at the expense of workers."

"It's wonderful that we delivered a resounding message that racist, hateful rhetoric will not stand."

"For far too long, black women have been ignored and left behind."

"When the battle is between a monopoly on one side and hard-working Americans on the other, the right side of history has always been on the side of the people."

"Reparations have existed in this country, and it seems like literally everybody else is able to get reparations but whenever it comes to Black folks, all of a sudden white people start getting really scared about it."

"True resistance to fascism involves building a society founded on solidarity and the dismantling of power structures that oppress."

"Emancipatory politics...seeks to actively rectify the power discrepancies in society that discriminate against and marginalize ethnic and racial and sexual minorities."

"The only answer to this moment is to reduce the wealth and power of the people on top."

"I mean, I hear people talk in the language of participation and justice and equality and transparency, but then almost no one raises the real issue of tax avoidance, right, and of the rich just not paying their fair share."

"We wouldn't need a charity like Feeding America if legislation was passed to make it a right for the hungry to be fed."

"Private philanthropy is no substitution for hard-fought battles over labor laws and social security."

"Racism came with a whole ideology about the superiority of whites, supported by appeals to religion, similar to justifications for sexism and speciesism."

"OTE honors Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy by continuing to fight for equity, liberty, and freedom."

"Martin Luther King is the perfect time to get the messages across that when there's injustice, we need to stand up to it."

"There is absolutely no excuse for any human being on this planet to exist in the caustic condition of poverty or socio-economic inequality not in the 21st century."

"My heart has opened up so much... just spending time even with people behind bars that I'm fighting for."

"The only way to abolish sex work is to abolish poverty."

"If a concentration camp or laboratory is burned, that is violence but if it is left standing, is that not more or worse violence?"

"Making poor people richer is an extremely intelligent environmental move for a variety of reasons."

"When scripture talks about how we need to be taking care of the fatherless and the widow, that's a very consistent thing progressives are very familiar with these quotes because they'll often use them."

"Dehumanization is not a social justice tool. It is emotional offloading. It is gratuitous. It is self-indulgent."

"Black women stand to gain the most from disrupting the individual and exclusionary system of capitalism."

"Undocumented immigrants pay taxes amounting to tens of billions of dollars in local, state, and federal taxes per year, even though they can't access most benefits that US citizens are entitled to receive."

"Financial literacy can literally help close wealth gaps, reduce inequity and even help with social issues."

"We have political prisoners in the United States... Look at Fred Hampton."

"Affirmative action benefited more white women than it did black people."

"It has long been time to not only not accept racism but to become anti-racist. That's all of us. We need to start to really listen to and help amplify black voices to make their struggles known and to reject racism."

"I have always and will always be an ally and I will always stand up for what is right. #BlackLivesMatter."

"The slogan #BlackLivesMatter does not mean other lives don't. It's calling attention to the fact that society clearly thinks black lives don't matter."

"The noble dream of liberty and justice for all has been frustrated by how wealth and power are distributed, by how undemocratic capitalism is."

"At the core of public health, there is this principle of social justice. That people have the right to be healthy and to live in conditions which support their health."

"To be Jewish is therefore intrinsically connected to keeping our eyes open to injustice. That is our spiritual and historical duty."

"Striving to be educated around issues of social justice is laudable and moral, but striving to be recognized by others as a woke individual is self-serving and misguided."

"The legacy of this dark period in our history still affects our modern society as many African Americans continue to face unequal access to health care and medical discrimination."

"Revolutions only start when revolutionaries rise up and start to spread the word on the injustices in society."

"We are all responsible for pursuing social justice for all human beings without exception, which includes pursuing social justice for Palestinians."

"In fact, you are deeply connected to the people, both past and present, who experience various forms of violence and exploitation on behalf of your interests."

"If the people that we think are others were given the same opportunities and privileges as the people above, maybe those others could also gain a soul of their own."

"There are groups that have been marginalized and excluded because of historic systems and structures that were intentionally designed to favor one group over another."

"In California, economists have worked alongside us over this past year to come up with potential estimates for what reparations in the form of compensation or cash payments can look like for African-Americans."

"Trans people are fighting for our lives, our right to exist in society, and this fight is in no way equivalent to the rationalizations offered by people who oppose trans rights."

"We can't build a better world unless we work together, respect our differences, protect the vulnerable, and stand up for the things that matter most."

"Why are you so afraid of recognizing your own privilege? It doesn't mean you're a bad person, just recognize it and do something about it."

"It's understanding our own intersections of privilege and oppression, and how that will fundamentally change our behaviors and attitudes and values."

"We have to be very intentional as policymakers about whether these technologies serve to deepen or bridge those inequalities and biases."

"Clean drinking water in today's world should not be a privilege. The United Nations even classifies it as a basic human right."

"The biggest challenge to me is, are people ready to engage with seeing black men as possible victims?"

"The pursuit of a better world for all through the elimination of poverty, discrimination, and injustice."

"Before we celebrate the freedom most Americans have, we must fight for the freedom all Americans deserve."

"Start making demands of your elected officials. America owes certain communities."

"Bail out the goddamn communities that need it. Simple as that."

"Elections have consequences. If you care about justice—social justice, economic justice, environmental justice, personal freedom—we, the Democrats, have to win this election."

"Reach out to friends, family members, members of your community, people of color; just try to learn stories, try to understand why this is happening, where this is coming from, and what we can do to make a difference."

"The exploitation of human beings for private profit is an outrage."

"Ang says he's seen with his own eyes the power imbalance between Benders and non-benders... Punishing all Benders as if they themselves committed these acts when they have not is unjust."

"I still feel like black women's lives don't matter as much as other people's lives."

"Your oppressors are never going to give you the tools to overthrow them."

"If you automatically assume that poor people are more likely to commit crimes, that's an insult to poor people."

"Something maybe needs to be taken away from us to assert that we can still have a life but other people need more."

"Just because something is legal does not mean it's moral."

"Human rights exist as a concept and as a method, a mechanism for achieving a moral end."

"Second, we need to develop a robust account of human rights and liberties and forms of aid to the needy to be asserted and reasserted against selfish interests, the powerful majority, the overweening state, and aggressors from within or abroad."

"Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it."

"The best way of going forward is not to discriminate, period."

"It’s unfair to expect the poor to liberate the rich when the poor cannot liberate themselves."

"Social equality is the belief that all people should enjoy equal opportunity within a society."

"Economic equality is... an attempt to remove any differences in wealth between all people everywhere."

"I don't know that it can die as long as there's power and oppression; there will be people fighting for equity."

"Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression."

"Human beings are not illegal; first and foremost, they're humans."

"Let's reform the whole system root and branch and save ourselves and them all of this unnecessary grief."

"When you are accustomed to privilege, equality will feel like oppression."

"If you work full-time, you should be able to live on that wage."

"Now's the Time to also become truly intersectional in terms of age, race, sexuality, and economic status."

"Because every single woman I know has a story about a man feeling entitled to access to her body. Every single one. #YesAllWomen"

"Privilege hides in dark corners, and we need to make sure we see it."

"Humans deserve dignity. Why is that hard? This shouldn't be hard."

"I believe in meritocracy. I want the floor to be a reasonable floor so I want people to have the basics met."

"There's a very stark division between critics of corporate capitalism who actually mean it and those who now appropriate words but, in their actions, essentially buttress the corporate state."

"If there are injustices in our society, regardless of your demographic, you should be attempting to alleviate that."

"It's always been about social injustice, social equality, and that's what they're standing up for."

"If you want to live in an egalitarian society, feminism and social justice is how we get there."

"Guard the rights of the widow, secure justice for the fatherless, give to the needy, defend the orphan, clothe the naked."

"We need police reform. There's no question about this."

"Whether we do or go initiate anything like reparations, it is going to succeed or fail on the basis of whether or not we have a larger framework for the conversation over race and Black America specifically."

"Black women deserve the world, and they do deserve luxury, but they deserve it in all aspects of their life and not only with physical things."

"The promise of canceling was that it was going to give power back to people who had none, and bring justice to prominent abusers."

"The work clearly is not done, and we need to be steadfast in protecting against discrimination and horrific actions."

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist."

"I hope that I can be a small part of making the world and the conversation better...and elevate voices that have been silenced for too long."

"The system is set up to make sure poor people do not build wealth."

"The forces of bigotry, hatred, and violent extremism must be stopped for the sake of our democracy."

"I think that minimum wage needs to be increased, and workers deserve more rights."

"Odell Barnes Jr. wanted a whole lot more but also a whole lot less at the same time. He was convicted of murder in 2000 and sentenced to death. For his last meal, he ordered justice, equality, world peace."

"Black power is not being invited to the front of the bus. It's not even driving the bus. Black power is owning the damn bus, where you get to be the owner, the driver, and the passenger because it's your own goddamn bus."

"I'd way rather be told I'm overly sensitive and help bring awareness than defend the indefensible."

"I think that carceral logic is deeply invested in cancel culture, and it's that punitive response of wanting to punish someone for doing something wrong and thinking that that is the same thing as accountability, which I think it is not."

"It's not enough just to be anti-racist; we also need to be pro-human, to insist on our common humanity."

"Social justice does not make arguments; it makes declarations and it labels people."

"How can I, black and African and blessed as I am by the struggles of my fathers and mothers, deny my gay brothers and sisters their rights?"

"To combat racism, xenophobia, and intolerance... leveraging the power of the federal government to stand against this hate."

"We must say it simply: the economy is sick. It is the fruit of unequal economic growth that disregards fundamental human values."

"Ordinary people are paying taxes; rich people are not. So, this is inequality, and it is leading up to populism."

"Punishes someone who doesn't necessarily deserve to be punished, condemns them in the public eye, and unfairly forces them into a more difficult and stressful position."

"Trans folks are human too. We deserve basic human rights."

"The profit motive needs to be fed by serving the consumer instead of serving a small handful of the ruling class."

"Employers should not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity because those honestly, for the most part, have nothing to do with whether or not you can do a job."

"The fear against trans people and trans women in particular is completely unjustified."

"We cannot keep letting the most vulnerable be casualties of a system that cares more about quick and final decisions than actually correct ones."

"If we have the opportunity and the resources, to find ways to bridge the gaps of inequity."

"This kind of ideological blindness will eventually undo social justice. The mainstream public... they want people treated fairly."