Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Clint Smith - Page 2

I kind of follow in the tradition of some folks - some thinkers and scholars I really look up - who reject the idea of intellectual compartmentalization.

Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces where learning can be both cultivated and encouraged.

Older prisoners are more expensive for prisons to house because they tend to require more health care over time.

Advocating for affirmative action through the prism of diversity may be more politically palatable, but it will inevitably yield insufficient results.

My poetry is me trying to reconcile my own life and opportunities I've had with opportunities my students aren't given and how profoundly unfair that is.

We inculcate young people with the message that if they don't succeed, it is merely of their own doing. They should have worked harder, we say. They should have made better decisions. This message is especially present in communities of color.

I'm not sure that there are days of my life when I'm not confronted with racism. For some, that may seem hyperbolic, but it's true.

Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.

In my home, guns were not something to be earned or celebrated. Water guns and Nerf guns were not allowed outside. B.B. guns were not even a part of the conversation.

Sometimes a poem should just be about a girl jumping rope. It doesn't have to be something that is imbued with more despair.

A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage.

The moral abhorrence of private prisons has been brought to our attention by courageous acts of investigative journalism, illuminating scholarship, and the work of activists who have decried the social stratification brought about by our prison systems.

Abolition seemed a fantasy when Frederick Douglass called for all slaves to be released.

Preparing oneself for the possibility of confronting racism triggers something that slowly chips away at physical and emotional well-being.

To operate with the aspiration of color-blindness in a country whose central operating mechanism for centuries has been race belies the logic of race-neutral public policy. Public policy must account for the historic and intentional pillaging of resources experienced by black Americans.

If our principles are only our principles when it is convenient for us, when they align with our visceral emotional responses, then they are, in fact, not principles at all.

Each holiday season, as family members arrive and couches are unfolded, my household settles into a palpable nostalgia. Poorly designed photo albums are pulled from the shelves. Home videos of prepubescent siblings in matching pajamas dance across the television screen.

The most important and brave thing someone can do, I think, in the face of dehumanization, is to continue to assert their humanity.

It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the chair; it is harder to sustain such principles when the crime of the accused is morally indefensible.

The U.S. prison system, over all, disproportionately affects black and brown people, but people of color are overrepresented to a greater degree in private prisons.

In sixth grade, my status as a Boy Scout was not something I went out of my way to share. In fact, I spent most of my adolescence attempting to keep it a secret from those who might use it as a source of derision. The off-brown collared shirt and forest-green sash were not something I would have ever been caught wearing in front of my friends.

The social science on the impact of desegregation is clear. Researchers have consistently found that students in integrated schools - irrespective of ethnicity, race, or social class - are more likely to make academic gains in mathematics, reading, and often science than they are in segregated ones.

While violence is part of what it means to be part of the black diaspora in the United States, that is not all it means to be black.

In my hometown of New Orleans, grief is a public spectacle that, somewhat paradoxically, necessitates celebration. The dead are not mourned so much as they are posthumously venerated with music and dance.

If the only people we are able to extend empathy to are those who are like us, who come from the same country we do, or who share our faith, then we misunderstand what empathy is.

Our entire lives, we're inundated with media and messaging that tells us that to be incarcerated is to be criminal and to be criminal is to be a bad person.

Living under the perpetual and pervasive threat of racism seems, for black men and black women, to quite literally reduce lifespans.

It's incredibly important to understand history... when it comes to inequality.

When seconds count, the cops are just minutes away.

Don't shoot fast, shoot good.

You can say 'stop' or 'alto' or use any other word you think will work but I've found that a large bore muzzle pointed at someone's head is pretty much the universal language.

Beware the man who only has one gun. He probably knows how to use it!

If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do I have to be paranoid about?

Read critically, write consciously; speak clearly; tell your truth!

The handgun would not be my choice of weapon if I knew I was going to a fight. ...I'd choose a rifle, a shotgun, an RPG or an atomic bomb instead.

Every time I teach a class, I discover I don't know something.

A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and asked him 'Why do you carry a 45?' The Ranger responded, 'Because they don't make a 46.'

The two most important rules in a gunfight are: always cheat and always win.

The sling is to a rifle what the holster is to a pistol. If you have a sling, chances are you will keep the rifle with you. If there is no sling present, you will set the rifle down. When you are at the absolutely farthest point away from the rifle that you can possibly get, you'll need it.

Make your attacker advance through a wall of bullets. I may get killed with my own gun, but he's gonna have to beat me to death with it, cause it's gonna be empty.

An armed man will kill an unarmed man with monotonous regularity.

Don't forget, incoming fire has the right of way.

If you're not shootin', you should be loadin'. If you're not loadin, you should be movin', if you're not movin', someone's gonna cut your head off and put it on a stick.