“In those days [1955], affirmative action was for whites only. I might still be working for the grocery store in the small Texas town where I grew up were it not for affirmative action for Southern white boys.”

— Bill Moyers

"Help", speech to the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (3 March 2007), in Moyers on Democracy (2008), p. 99

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "In those days [1955], affirmative action was for whites only. I might still be working for the grocery store in the sma…" by Bill Moyers?

Bill Moyers34

American journalist 1934

Related quotes

“After all that Richard Nixon had written about how hard work wins the day in America, finally it was Nixon who arranged for me to bypass the old rules. Through the agency of affirmative action, akin to those pivotal narrative devices in Victorian fictions, I had, suddenly, a powerful father in America, like Old Man Kennedy. I had, in short, found a way to cheat. The saddest part of the story is that Nixon was willing to disown his own myth for political expediency. It would be the working-class white kid—the sort he had been—who would end up paying the price of affirmative action, not Kennedys. Affirmative action defined a “minority” in a numerical rather than a cultural sense. And since white males were already numerically “represented” in the boardroom, as at Harvard, the Appalachian white kid could not qualify as a minority. And since brown and black faces were “underrepresented,” those least disadvantaged brown and black Americans, like me, were able to claim the prize of admission and no one questioned our progress.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Brown : The Last Discovery of America (2003)

“What is the moral argument for an affirmative action that justifies unending race discrimination against a declining white working class, who have become the expendables of our multicultural regime?”

Patrick Buchanan (1938) American politician and commentator

"The Great White Hope" http://buchanan.org/blog/great-white-hope-125286 (May 26, 2016), Patrick J. Buchanan 2010s

“I grew up a Southern Baptist in Texas where dancing was a mortal sin in the eyes of Almighty God, but coffee was OK. Dave grew up a Latter Day Saint where dancing was considered righteous – but not coffee.
But . . . we're dancers. And laughers. That's a strong bond right there. And we're committed to being useful in our world.”

Robert Fulghum (1937) American writer

"The Lightness Of Being" (25 April 2007) Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah http://robertfulghum.com/index.php/fulghumweb/entry/377_the_lightness_of_being/ Web Journal Context: The four of us are talking dancing, and laughing, and recalling the joys of being out on the floor and having that timeless feeling that comes from being caught up in the music. "Nobody should miss that," says Dave. On the face of it, Dave's family and I don't have a lot in common. They're Mormons and Republicans. I'm a Unitarian and a Democrat. When Dave was on the County Council, we were on different sides of some important issues. I grew up a Southern Baptist in Texas where dancing was a mortal sin in the eyes of Almighty God, but coffee was OK. Dave grew up a Latter Day Saint where dancing was considered righteous – but not coffee. But... we're dancers. And laughers. That's a strong bond right there. And we're committed to being useful in our world. And if you love something, like dancing, and you pass it on, like Dave and his wife do, you've been very useful by my standards. Dancing is a lifetime, equal opportunity sport. And I will never drive by Dave's garage again without having the finest feelings for the man and his wife and mother who are inside taking good care of their corner of this world. They've added an important dimension to the lives of the young people of their town — that lightness of being that belongs to dancers.

“We had affirmative action programs to help women help themselves economically. Is it now time for affirmative action programs to do for men’s feelings what the government did for women’s economics?”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Women Can't Hear What Men Don't Say (2000)

“I was looking for some action / but all I found was cigarettes and alcohol
Is it worth the aggravation to find yourself a job when there's nothing worth working for?
You might as well do the white line”

Noel Gallagher (1967) British musician

Cigarettes and Alcohol
Definitely Maybe (1994)

“(the effort to abolish affirmative action) is led mostly by conscienceless politicians, publicity-seeking bigots, whites with individual gripes who find it easy to make trouble in a litigious society, and a handful of blacks who harbor doubts about their own intellectual merits.”

Carl Rowan (1925–2000) American journalist

Quoington Star article entitled "Has President Nixon Gone Crazy?", "The Coming Race War in America: A Wake-up Call" (1996)

“Affirmative Action is a temporary measure to correct these imbalances (between ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians).”

Laisenia Qarase (1941) Prime Minister of Fiji

Excerpts from an address to the Commonwealth Workshop in Nadi, 29 August 2005

“The policy of affirmative action, however, was never able to distinguish someone like me (a graduate student of English, ambitious for a college teaching career) from a slightly educated Mexican-American who lived in a barrio and worked as a menial laborer, never expecting a future improved. Worse, affirmative action made me the beneficiary of his conditions.”

Richard Rodríguez (1944) American journalist and essayist

Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez (1982)

“The children of the white families in town were not permitted to associate with me, because my father was committing the then unpardonable crime, in Southern eyes, of educating negroes.”

Lee De Forest (1873–1961) American inventor

Interviewed by Frank Parker Stockbridge, "The Man Who Made Radio Talk" http://books.google.com/books?id=bCoDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA32, Popular Science Monthly, May 1929

“Satire in the US has been killed off by the twin tyrannies of political correctness and affirmative action.”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Thanks, POTUS, For Breaking-Up The Annual Correspondents’ Circle Jerk." http://dailycaller.com/2017/05/08/thanks-potus-for-breaking-up-the-annual-correspondents-circle-jerk/ The Daily Caller, May 8, 2017 2010s, 2017

“In those days [1955], affirmative action was for whites only. I might still be working for the grocery store in the small Texas town where I grew up were it not for affirmative action for Southern white boys.”

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Bill Moyers34

Related quotes

Related topics