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" Until affirmative action is described and understood as one mechanism by which to make amends for historical wrongdoing against members of marginalized communities, it will fail to meaningfully address the inequality that exists as a direct result of federal policy. "

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" 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. "

Clint Smith

Dance

New

Hometown

" Young people are constantly absorbing - through media, textbooks, and policy - the myths of American exceptionalism; for black children, this means that what they are taught in class does not match the world that they navigate daily. "

" 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. "

Clint Smith

Our

Person

" The benefits of prison education go beyond lowering recidivism rates and increasing post-release employment. It can also rekindle a sense of purpose and confidence. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

Clint Smith

Country

Faith

" One of the most significant factors contributing to the chasm of educational opportunity is the way that schools are funded. "

" With 'Black Panther,' black artists were provided with the opportunity and agency to create art that captures the full range of their imaginative possibilities. It matters that Chadwick Boseman is the protagonist and is supported by a cast of nearly all black characters. "

" While the most disadvantaged students - most often poor students of color - receive the most considerable academic benefits from attending diverse schools, research demonstrates that young people in general, regardless of their background, experience profound benefits from attending integrated schools. "

" 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. "

" The death penalty not only takes away the life of the person strapped to the table - it takes away a little bit of the humanity in each of us. "

Clint Smith

Death

Death Penalty

" In many ways, the very notion of school choice operates under a false pretense - an assumption that every child has the same set of choices to make and the same places to choose from. "

" History has proven that art depicting black people cannot be disentangled from the political implications that such art has on their lives. As Africans were being stripped from the continent and sailed across the Atlantic to the Western world, depictions of black people in Western art changed in order to further render them racialized caricatures. "

" New Orleans taught me that mourning takes many different forms. Where I'm from, mourning is spirited. It is loud. "

" I've been a follower of Arsenal Football Club since I was ten years old. "

" Growing up in New Orleans, I was always the only black kid, or one of two, on the school soccer team. While I was always conscious of this status, what took precedent was my unfettered love of the game. "

" 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. "

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

" 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. "

" People create the sort of myths they want to believe about themselves. "

" 'A Talk to Teachers' showed me that a teacher's work should reject the false pretense of being apolitical and, instead, confront the problems that shape our students' lives. "

Clint Smith

Teacher

Work

" The power of literature does not lie in resonance with the particular but the way that the particular speaks to a broader, more universal truth. "

" When the U.S. team went on its historic run to the World Cup quarter-finals in 2002, I was thirteen years old. Each game in that run - the astonishing victory against Portugal, the resilient win over Mexico, even the gutsy but unlucky effort against the Germans - propelled me to push my other athletic interests aside and focus only on soccer. "

" Oppression doesn't disappear just because you decided not to teach us that chapter. "

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

" Schools are the single largest lever of mobility in this country. When we commit to creating and enforcing laws that acknowledge the injustice of the past, we open up the possibility of using schools as a means of reducing inequality. "

Clint Smith

Country

Injustice

" 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. "

" 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 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. "