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Stacey Abrams QUOTES

Stacey Abrams QUOTES

1 " …any voter denied a say in democracy has been harmed, and a remedy is in order regardless of the effect on an electoral outcome. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

2 " We are, by our natures, often required to manufacture our own breaks, identify new openings even before others know they exist. The best hack is to know this is the case, accept it, and move on, prepared to take full advantage. And then do it all over again. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

3 " My non-concession speech on November 16, 2018, served as a declaration of intent. We have been taught to expect concessions not only to the outcome of an electoral contest but to the system that undergirds it. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

4 " Voting rights are the most basic tenet of our democracy, and the bare minimum one should expect from the government. Our presidents can send our neighbors to war. Local elected officials decide the mundane questions of trash pickup and the weightier issues of hospital closures. At every level of our lives in this republic, we choose men and women to speak for us, yes, but also to determine the direction of our daily lives. And all it takes is a teachers’ strike or a government shutdown to remind us how vital elections can be to the daily rhythms of life. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

5 " No other right guaranteed by our constitution permits the loss of a right for failure to use it—to wit, I don't lose my Second Amendment right if I choose not to go hunting and I still have freedom of religion if I skip church now and then. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

6 " Defeating fear of otherness means knowing who you are and what you’re trying to accomplish and leveraging that otherness to our benefit. Knowing I’d never be invited into smoke-filled rooms or to the golf course, I instead requested individual meetings with political colleagues where I asked questions and learned about their interests, creating a similar sense of camaraderie. In business, I take full advantage of opportunities afforded to minorities but then always offer to share my learning with other groups that have similar needs—expanding the circle rather than closing myself off. Like most who are underestimated, I have learned to over-perform and find soft but key ways to take credit. Because, ultimately, leadership and power require the confidence to effectively wield both. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

7 " I confronted the expected stereotypes by knowing what they were and building an alternate narrative about myself. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

8 " No, [I'm not an optimist]. I am an ameliorist, which is something I made up. I believe that the glass is half full. It’s just probably poisoned. And so my job is always to be on the hunt for the antidote. "

― Stacey Abrams

9 " Difference is real, and to acknowledge such does no harm to the American identity as a whole. The vibrance of our identity politics reaffirms the complexity of our nation and the underpinning of our founding. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

10 " I embrace identity politics because for the marginalized, the disadvantaged, and the minority groups still grappling for purchase in our politics, identity is the strongest defense against invisibility. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

11 " The voting system is not just political; it is economic and social and educational. It is omnipresent and omniscient. And it is fallible. Yet, when a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

12 " Those who rage against and work against expanding the electorate know what's at stake. The goal is to block access to the ballot and to policy making because letting the agitators inside might yield new laws to remedy inequality or injustice. The fear of these elected officials is a loss of power, grounded in an assortment of causes like racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, or an inchoate desire to keep the world as it was when they sat at the peak of influence. They forget that the bygone days of political tranquility never truly existed—the agitators simply hadn't amassed sufficient power to be heard. But they are getting closer to it every day. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

13 " Because I learned long ago that winning doesn’t always mean you get the prize. Sometimes you get progress, and that counts. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

14 " Logic is a seductive excuse for setting low expectations. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

15 " From the moment I enter a room, I am clear about how I intend to be treated and how I intend to engage. I do not tell self-deprecating jokes about my race or gender, though I will do so about my personal idiosyncrasies. I can be charmingly humble or playfully self-effacing without pandering to stereotypes in order to make others comfortable. For example, my attire, my hairstyle, even my presentation style, reflect me rather than aping the behavior of others. I know that when I offer criticism of men in the workplace, I may be seen as a man-hater. I know because I am not married, I may be seen as a lesbian. I know because I will never be less than curvaceous and wear my hair natural "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

16 " Never tell yourself no. Let someone else do it. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

17 " Voting is a constitutional right in the United States, a right that has been reiterated three separate times via constitutional amendment. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

18 " It’s frustrating to realize we’re taught to be humble in a way that men are not. "

― Stacey Abrams , Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

19 " Full citizenship rights are the bare minimum one should expect from the government. Yet, for two-thirds of our history, full citizenship was denied to those who built this country from theory to life. African slaves and Chinese workers and Native American environmentalists and Latino gauchos and Irish farmers—and half the population: women. Over the course of our history, these men and women, these patriots and defenders of liberty, have been denied the most profound currency of citizenship: power. Because, let’s be honest, that is the core of this fight. The right to be seen, the right to be heard, the right to direct the course of history are markers of power. In the United States, democracy makes politics one of the key levers to exercising power. So, it should shock none of us that the struggle for dominion over our nation’s future and who will participate is simply a battle for American power. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

20 " Yet, from limiting original voting rights to white men, to the elitist and racist origins of the Electoral College, American democracy has always left people out of participation, by design. "

― Stacey Abrams , Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America