Equity Quotes

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”
― Benjamin Franklin

“Fairness does not mean everyone gets the same. Fairness means everyone gets what they need.”
― Rick Riordan, The Red Pyramid

“Equality of opportunity is not enough. Unless we create an environment where everyone is guaranteed some minimum capabilities through some guarantee of minimum income, education, and healthcare, we cannot say that we have fair competition. When some people have to run a 100 metre race with sandbags on their legs, the fact that no one is allowed to have a head start does not make the race fair. Equality of opportunity is absolutely necessary but not sufficient in building a genuinely fair and efficient society.”
― Ha-Joon Chang, 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism

“That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.

- Book VI, 54.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“Walter made me understand why we have to reform a system of criminal justice that continues to treat people better if they are rich and guilty than if they are poor and innocent. A system that denies the poor the legal help they need, that makes wealth and status more important than culpability, must be changed. Walter's case taught me that fear and anger are a threat to justice; they can infect a community, a state, or a nation and make us blind, irrational, and dangerous. I reflected on how mass imprisonment has littered the national landscape with carceral monuments of reckless and excessive punishment and ravaged communities with our hopeless willingness to condemn and discard the most vulnerable among us. I told the congregation that Walter's case had taught me that the death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?”
― Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy

“With you it is always the law, never equity.”
― Rafael Sabatini, Scaramouche

“James Ed went to his office and sat down at his small, metal desk. He smiled as he considered Penny Jones’ plan to shame him out of her life. Would he let her do that? He shook his head as he thought, No way in hell!”
― Shafter Bailey

“Resist when the world tries to convince you otherwise.”
― Nic Stone, Dear Justyce

“The majority of any society comprised, Smith knew, not landlords or merchants, but "servants, laborers, and workmen of different kinds," who derived their income from wages. Their welfare was the prime concern of economic policy, as Smith conceived it. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable," he wrote. "It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." The chief economic concern of the legislator, in Smith's view, ought to be the purchasing power of wages, since that was the measure of the material well-being of the bulk of the population. (p. 64)”
― Jerry Z. Muller, The Mind and the Market: Capitalism in Western Thought

“Anger should be especially kept down in punishing, because he who comes to punishment in wrath will never hold that middle course which lies between the too much and the too little. It is also true that it would be desirable that they who hold the office of Judges should be like the laws, which approach punishment not in a spirit of anger but in one of equity.”
― Johannes Voet

“A racist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial inequity between racial groups. An antiracist policy is any measure that produces or sustains racial equity between racial groups. By policy, I mean written and unwritten laws, rules, procedures, processes, regulations, and guidelines that govern people. There is no such thing as a nonracist or race-neutral policy. Every policy in every institution in every community in every nation is producing or sustaining either racial inequity or equity between racial groups.”
― Ibram X. Kendi, How to Be an Antiracist

“Connections, like treasury bonds, are issued to every rich white person upon exiting the womb. Whenever one of them gets high and crashes their parents’ car, whenever they get busted for buying coke from an undercover, whenever they get caught messing with the wrong gangsters on vacation, they make a call, send a text, or whip out their AMEX.”
― Mateo Askaripour, Black Buck

“Being in the dominant group, where the culture matches our culture, tends to lead to not only advantage, but also conscious laziness.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“The ascent of women in business heralds a brighter future for all.”
― Hendrith Vanlon Smith Jr.

“Equity is not a finite resource.
Especially when we understand it
as love.”
― Joy Donnell, Show Us Your Fire

“Our challenge is how to identify and talk about our differences, well, differently.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“Unless we’re interacting with a mirror all day, we are interacting across differences.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“It can feel as if we’re giving up our own values or giving in to the other person’s preferences. The reality is, it’s not giving up but adding on.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“Organization after organization has created a culture of, for, and by only round holes, yet they say they want square and triangle and star pegs.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“Equality applies the same rules and advantages to all in an attempt to treat everyone fairly. While used with the best of intentions, the results are rarely equal.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“The systems within our organizations continue to churn out disparities and inequities, and all too often, those charged with fixing the problem look to the wrong source.”
― Sara Taylor, Thinking at the Speed of Bias: How to Shift Our Unconscious Filters

“True equality between groups that are different in any way can be attained only by providing for the differences". That´s Margaret Mead again, in 1974. Mead´s idea of true equality might now be labeled equity.”
― Richard V. Reeves, Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It

“If it does not hurt you or others directly, why do you deny its existence? Why do you deny that this world is full of such rich colors? We do not know them all.”
― Sara Ellie MacKenzie

“The moment one fights evil, one becomes evil.”
― Anamikos

“I confront the question of whether DEI initiatives are divisive and ineffective. The answer is yes on both counts, but not for the narratives propagated by the American ruling class of oligarchs. Rather, we should consider how DEI initiatives have worked just enough to keep the status quo intact for those at the top, while planting the seeds of division between a significant percentage of marginalized and impoverished white people and every other marginalized and impoverished group in the U.S. and beyond.
[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako

“The first problem with the word “diversity” is the word itself. Who is diverse in relation to whom? The way diversity is often framed in institutional domains implies that some people are diverse in relation to others. That some need to learn diversity while others have it and bring it to the table. This framing, I argue, has from the start driven a wedge between a significant percentage of marginalized and disadvantaged white people and other marginalized and disadvantaged groups—groups that should naturally be allies, not enemies. The only group that benefits from this divide is a small percentage of privileged whites who use the structure of whiteness to their full advantage.
[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako

“By hiding behind the overarching term “white privilege,” the small percentage of privileged whites have ensured the following: first, they remain disguised behind the veil of whiteness and thus maintain the status quo. Second, they ensure that most marginalized white people remain defensive—and come to their defense—whenever their wealth and power are threatened. Third, through the structure of “whiteness,” privileged whites ensure that a large percentage of disadvantaged white people see other groups fighting against similar socio-economic ills as enemies, not allies to unite with in their battle. As such, the first bold proposal I make, if we are serious about social change, is to replace “white privilege” with “privileged whites” to account for the many whites who are not privileged and distinguish them from those who are. The huge number of disadvantaged white people are allies in this battle against the privileged, wealthy ruling class who utilize countless “isms” and “phobias” as sorting devices, while using the term “white privilege” as a tool to prevent any potential allyship between many white people who are not part of their club, yet are misled to think that the problem is everyone else in society except the privileged whites…Precision in language makes a huge difference to ensure all social groups who need to unite and work together have clarity on what kind of changes are needed, and who exactly is blocking change and transformation.
[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako

“We hear how diversity and equity are about lowering standards or doing away with them altogether. If DEI initiatives do the work they are supposed to do, they should not be lowering standards. Rather, they should revise and change standards in ways that take into consideration all groups who were never considered when these standards were made.
[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako

“Many DEI trainings and narratives have indeed enabled or produced types of people who seem to be looking for excuses to be offended and to construe, sometimes genuine human slips, as intentional micro and macro aggressions. Even worse, the way things have been done has resulted in people who are quick to play identity cards anytime they are confronted with totally unrelated matters like being incompetent in doing their work or other unrelated professional and personal matters. I am in no way condoning or denying the existence of racism, sexism, and countless other forms of exclusions, marginalization, and even violence against so many vulnerable groups and individuals, but I also can’t in good faith ignore the darker side of this coin. For one side to be true, it doesn’t negate the other darker side. In many workplaces and university campuses, we have armies of people who overuse and even abuse the language of ‘feeling violated’ over things like someone mistakenly not referring to them as “they,” but they remain completely silent and unmoved by countless injustices on campus or at work, let alone about atrocities and genocides in the outside world. We have a type that wastes so much time giving themselves and others the ‘permission’ to indulge in selfish acts of complicity, indifference, and silence under the guise of ‘self-care.’

[From "Understanding the DEI Dismantlement” published on Counterpunch on January 31, 2025]”
― Louis Yako

“The most common explanation by leaders and those in positions of influence is that equity, diversity, and inclusion take time. My question is, whose time – that of a human or a God? The scriptures tell us that God’s one day is equal to one thousand human years. So, if we are talking in terms of God’s time, it has only been six days. If we are talking in terms of human time, then recorded human history is six thousand years. How much longer are we expected to wait.”
― Faisal Khosa