Quinn > Recent Status Updates

“Abortion is about life: quality of life for infants, children, and adults. Everywhere and in ever sense of the word. Life, not death.”

“Never once did these decisions seem easy or casual. Every one was the product of tremendous personal struggle. Anyone who claims otherwise is either very ignorant or unkind or both. Anyone who says that women use abortion as a method of birth control or as a simple matter of convenience should spend a day in a clinic where abortions are performed. No honest person would ever make that statement again.”

“I knew from my embryology classes in the first year of medical school that an eight-week embryo is about the size of my thumbnail. It cannot feel pain or think or have any sense of being.”

“Poor people live without fundamental freedoms of action and choice that the better off take for granted. They often lack adequate food and shelter, education and health, deprivations that keep them from leading the kind of life that everyone values.”

“There are so many more steps to be taken to achieve human equality. The first round of this battle was never about integration in my opinion. It was always about access - access to opportunity, to resources, to freedom. The enemy was more visible, the battle lines drawn in plain sight. What I call the “new racism” is about success- success in terms of cultural, social, and economic status.”

“Let’s tell the truth to the people. When people ask, “How are you,” have the nerve sometimes to answer truthfully. You must know however, that people will start avoiding you because they too have knees that pain them and heads which hurt and they don’t want to know about yours. But think of it this way, if people avoid you, you will have more time to do fine research on a cure for whatever afflicts you.”

“I am convince that most people do not grow up. We find parking spaces and honor credit cards. We marry and dare to have children and call that growing up. I think what we do is mostly grow old.”

...the black guy on the street in NY doesn’t want to think about race, until he tries to haul a cab, and he doesn’t want to think about race when he’s driving his Mercedes under the speed limit, until a cop pulls him over. So Appalachian hick guy doesn’t have class privilege but he sure as hell as race privilege.”

..be sent to treatment and the black guy is more likely to be sent to jail. Everything else is the same except for race....He also said: why must we always talk about race anyway? Can’t we just be human beings? And Professor replied - that is exactly what white privilege is, that you can say that. Race doesn’t really exist for you because it has never been a barrier. Black folks don’t have that choice...

“So this guy said to Professor Hunk, “White privilege is nonsense. How can I be privileged? I grew up fucking poor in West Virginia. I’m an Appalachian hick. My family is on welfare.” Right but privilege is always relative to something else. Now imagine someone like him, as poor and as fucked up, and then make that person black. If both are caught for drug possession, say, the white guy is more likely to..”

Good blog post on this page - too long to quote

“In America, racism exists but racists are all gone. Racists belong to the past... here’s the thing: the manifestation of racism has changed but the language has not.”

“Look this article tells you to pinch your cheeks for Colour because all their readers are supposed to have cheeks you can pinch for Colour. This tells you about different hair products for everyone - & everyone means blondes, brunettes & redheads. I am none of those. And this tells you about the best conditioners - for straight, wavy &curly. No kinky......now let’s talk about what is racially skewed.”

“The only reason u say that race wasn’t an issue is because u wish it was not. We all wish it was not. But it’s a lie. I came from a country where race was not an issue; I didn’t think of myself as black & I only became black when I came to America. When u are black in America & u fall in love with a white person, race doesn’t matter when ur alone together. But the minute u step outside, race matters.””

“They would not understand why people like him, who were raised well-fed and watered but mired in dissatisfaction, conditioned from birth to look towards somewhere else, eternally convinced that real lives happened in that somewhere else, were now resolved to do dangerous things, illegal things, so as to leave, none of them starving, or raped, or from burned villages, but merely hungry for choice and certainty.”

“...understood the fleeing from war, from the kind of poverty that crushed human souls, but they would not understand the need to escape for the oppressive lethargy of choicelessness.”

“It brought to him a disorienting strangeness, because his mind had not changed at the same pace as his life, and he felt a hollow space between himself and the person he was supposed to be.”

“Her relationship with him was like being content in a house but always sitting by the window and looking out.”

“...where she is free from physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and where she has access to a fair justice system in case anything happens to her. More than anything, I dream of a future where she isn’t told what her life will look like based on cultural stereotypes, but where she has the freedom to live the life she wants to live, without being judged for the decisions she makes.”