If you only hear one side of the story, at some point, you have to question who the writer is. — Clint Smith Only Copy Share Image
“do you know what it means for your existence to be defined by someone else’s intentions?” — Clint Smith Life Copy Share Image
Abolition seemed a fantasy when Frederick Douglass called for all slaves to be released. — Clint Smith Abolition Copy Share Image
Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter. — Clint Smith Chapter Copy Share Image
So often, our sporting allegiances are shaped by family tradition, passed down like heirlooms. — Clint Smith Culture Copy Share Image
A cage that allows someone to walk around inside of it is still a cage. — Clint Smith Around Copy Share Image
'A Talk to Teachers' showed me that a teacher's work should reject the false pretense of being apolitical and, instead, confront the… — Clint Smith Education Copy Share Image
If our principles are only our principles when it is convenient for us, when they align with our visceral emotional responses, then… — Clint Smith Emotional Copy Share Image
This idea of shared humanity and the connections that we make with one another - that's what, in fact, makes life worth… — Clint Smith Connections Copy Share Image
America's economy cannot be disentangled from the free labor that built it, just as America's culture cannot be unbound from the black… — Clint Smith America Copy Share Image
Our entire lives, we're inundated with media and messaging that tells us that to be incarcerated is to be criminal and to… — Clint Smith Bad Copy Share Image
The history of racial violence in our country is both omnipresent and unspoken. It is a smog that surrounds us that few… — Clint Smith Country Copy Share Image
To be clear, affirmative action is not, by itself, an adequate response to decades of systemic looting, but it has been an… — Clint Smith Action Copy Share Image
Empathy should not be contingent on our proximity to suffering or the likelihood of it happening to us. Rather, it should stem… — Clint Smith Disdain Copy Share Image
“We spend so much time listening to the things people are saying that we rarely pay attention to the things they don't,"… — Clint Smith Communication Copy Share Image
After high school, I earned a scholarship to play Division I soccer at a small school in North Carolina, but I didn't… — Clint Smith High school Copy Share Image
When the residue of oppression and fear are compounded over time, when the historical precedents of policing and discrimination manifest themselves over… — Clint Smith Black people Copy Share Image
In sixth grade, my status as a Boy Scout was not something I went out of my way to share. In fact,… — Clint Smith Adolescence Copy Share Image
“I asked [my grandfather] if there would ever be an America in which white Americans were not actively working to keep themselves… — Clint Smith America Copy Share Image
The moral abhorrence of private prisons has been brought to our attention by courageous acts of investigative journalism, illuminating scholarship, and the… — Clint Smith Attention Copy Share Image
Photography, sculpture, and painting were wielded as cultural weapons over the course of generations to substantiate the idea that black people were… — Clint Smith Black people Copy Share Image
“The history of slavery is the history of the United States. It was not peripheral to our founding; it was central to… — Clint Smith African americans Copy Share Image
My parents raised me and my siblings in an armor of advice, an ocean of alarm bells so someone wouldn't steal the… — Clint Smith Advice Copy Share Image
Until lawmakers can disentangle property taxes from public education, inequalities - perpetuated by the Supreme Court and Congress - will persist. — Clint Smith Court Copy Share Image
Being incarcerated does not mean being devoid of the capacity to learn, grow, and think, and it's critical that prisons provide spaces… — Clint Smith Being Copy Share Image
It is easy not to support the death penalty when there is doubt about the culpability of the person sitting in the… — Clint Smith Culpability Copy Share Image
When you sing that this country was founded on freedom, don't forget the duet of shackles dragging against the ground my entire… — Clint Smith Country Copy Share Image
Growing up in New Orleans, I was always the only black kid, or one of two, on the school soccer team. While… — Clint Smith Football Copy Share Image
The U.S. prison system, over all, disproportionately affects black and brown people, but people of color are overrepresented to a greater degree… — Clint Smith Black Copy Share Image
If the only people we are able to extend empathy to are those who are like us, who come from the same… — Clint Smith Country Copy Share Image
A reporter did a human-interest piece on the Texas Rangers. The reporter recognized the Colt Model 1911 the Ranger was carrying and… — Clint Smith Colts Copy Share Image
Advocating for affirmative action through the prism of diversity may be more politically palatable, but it will inevitably yield insufficient results. — Clint Smith Action Copy Share Image
School desegregation is associated with higher graduation rates, greater employability, higher earnings, and decreased rates of incarceration. — Clint Smith Desegregation Copy Share Image
If you carry a gun, people will call you paranoid. That's ridiculous. If I have a gun, what in the hell do… — Clint Smith Gun Copy Share Image
In my home, guns were not something to be earned or celebrated. Water guns and Nerf guns were not allowed outside. B.B.… — Clint Smith Amendment Copy Share Image
One does not read a poem by Gwendolyn Brooks with hopes that it will grant him a career in engineering; he does… — Clint Smith Career Copy Share Image
Sometimes a poem should just be about a girl jumping rope. It doesn't have to be something that is imbued with more… — Clint Smith Despair Copy Share Image
Preparing oneself for the possibility of confronting racism triggers something that slowly chips away at physical and emotional well-being. — Clint Smith Chips Copy Share Image
Living under the perpetual and pervasive threat of racism seems, for black men and black women, to quite literally reduce lifespans. — Clint Smith Black Copy Share Image
![“I asked [my grandfather] if there would ever be an America in which white Americans were not actively working to keep themselves positioned atop the racial hierarchy. He thought for a moment and then said, "Some of them will never give it up.” quote by Clint Smith](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/8e6/clint-smith-4108_america_i-asked-my-grandfather-if-there-would-ev_2379426.jpg)
