Cultural Identity Quotes

• Citizenship has not delivered Indigenous Australians the same quality of life other Australians expect. Basic human rights involve health, housing, education, employment, economic opportunity, and equality before the law, and respect for cultural identity and cultural diversity. These human rights must be capable of being enjoyed otherwise they are empty gestures.

  Jackie Huggins

  Life, Opportunity, Law

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• human beings seem to hold on more tenaciously to a cultural identity that is learned through suffering than to one that has been acquired through pleasure and delight.

  Margaret Mead

  Suffering, Identity, Culture

  Margaret Mead (1970). “Culture and Commitment”

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• We tend to think of the problems of globalization and cultural identity as peculiar to our times. In fact they are rooted in ancient problems of civic belonging.

  Mark Kingwell

  Thinking, Identity, Facts

  Mark Kingwell (2000). “The World We Want: Restoring Citizenship in a Fractured Age”, p.3, Rowman & Littlefield

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• The indigenous peoples understand that they have to recover their cultural identity, or to live it if they have already recovered it. They also understand that this is not a favor or a concession, but simply their natural right to be recognized as belonging to a culture that is distinct from the Western culture, a culture in which they have to live their own faith.

  Samuel Ruiz

  Understanding, Identity, Western Culture

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• Education brings sustainability to all the development goals, and literacy is the foundation of all learning. It provides individuals with the skills to understand the world and shape it, to participate in democratic processes and have a voice, and also to strengthen their cultural identity.

  Irina Bokova

  Skills, Voice, Goal

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• Since the notion that we should all forsake attachment to race and/or cultural identity and be “just humans” within the framework of white supremacy has usually meant that subordinate groups must surrender their identities, beliefs, values, and assimilate by adopting the values and beliefs of privileged-class whites, rather than promoting racial harmony this thinking has created a fierce cultural protectionism.

  Bell Hooks

  Thinking, Race, Attachment

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• I think globalization actually maintains and fosters various elements of national and cultural identities. I don't think everything is being homogenized. If anything, your food, your culture, and your ethnicity might become part of the globalized world, and thus absorbed by other countries.

  Nouriel Roubini

  Country, Thinking, Ethnicity

  "Talking to Nouriel Roubini". Janera.com, May 02, 2007.

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• Since the main problem that American, the Afro- Americans have is a lack of cultural identity. It is necessary to teach [people] that they had some type of identity, culture, civilization before they were brought here.

  Malcolm X

  Civilization, People, Identity

  Interview with Robert Penn Warren, whospeaks.library.vanderbilt.edu. June 2, 1964.

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• I don't think it is wrong, racist, immoral or anything, for a country to say 'we will decide what the cultural identity and the cultural destiny of this country will be and nobody else'.

  John Howard

  Country, Destiny, Thinking

  "Howard reasserts right to decide cultural identity". The Age, September 20, 1988.

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• My parents were very Old World. They come from Brooklyn, which is the heart of the Old World. Their values in life are God and carpeting.

  Woody Allen

  Heart, Parent, Identity

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• The question really is what will be the central focus of global politics in the coming decades and my argument is that cultural identities and cultural antagonisms and affiliations will play not the only role but a major role.

  Samuel P. Huntington

  Play, Focus, Identity

  Interview With Amina Chaudary, www.theislamicmonthly.com. June 17, 2012.

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• The identity of just one thing, the "clash of civilization" view that you're a Muslim or a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Christian, I think that's such a limited way of seeing humanity, and schools have the opportunity to bring out the fact that we have hundreds of identities. We have our national identity. We have our cultural identity, linguistic identity, religious identity. Yes, cultural identity, professional identity, all kinds of ways.

  Amartya Sen

  Christian, Religious, Buddhist

  Source: www.pbs.org

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• The legacies that parents and church and teachers left to my generation of Black children were priceless but not material: a living faith reflected in daily service, the discipline of hard work and stick-to-itiveness, and a capacity to struggle in the face of adversity.

  Marian Wright Edelman

  Teacher, Children, Struggle

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• Well to me growing, up I've had my own psychological war with my parents dying at such a young age. My mother was killed by a drunk driver, then two months later my father drowned. He was out with his friends drinking and on medication for depression, and he didn't come out of the water alive. Growing up with sexual abuse and having to be in gangs and dealing with my own trauma; finding the cultural identity when I was 16, and learning those traditional ways saved me from hurting myself.

  Adam Beach

  Mother, Hurt, Growing Up

  "‘Diablo’ Interview: Adam Beach". Interview with Andrew Hawkins, chud.com. January 9, 2016.

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• I consider myself West African, among other cultural identities, and a writer, among other creative ones.

  Taiye Selasi

  Creative, Identity, West

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• When you see a Donald Trump and a Bernie Sanders, very unconventional candidates, have considerable success, then obviously there's something there that's being tapped into; a suspicion on globalization, a desire to reign in it's excesses, a suspicion of elites and governing institutions that people feel may not be responsive to their immediate needs. And that sometimes gets wrapped up in issues of ethnic identify or religious identity or cultural identity, and that can be a volatile mix.

  Barack Obama

  Religious, Issues, People

  Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras of Greece in Joint Press Conference, Maximos Mansion, Athens, Greece, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. November 15, 2016.

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• Italy advocates the adoption of a legal instrument on cultural diversity, guaranteeing every country the protection of its own historical identity and the uniqueness of its physical and intangible cultural heritage.

  Carlo Azeglio Ciampi

  Country, Diversity, Adoption

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• Kenya is rapidly developing its industry and manufacturing, and its cultural identity as a new country. We had a humongous history pre-British, and when we were colonized and violently reshuffled, we had to decide who we were again. We couldn't rest on the stories and the cultures of our great-grandparents.

  Wangechi Mutu

  Country, Grandparent, Identity

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• As blacks, we need not be afraid that encouraging moral development, a conscience and guilt will prevent social action. Black children without the ability to feel a normal amount of guilt will victimize their parents, relatives and community first. They are unlikely to be involved in social action to improve the black community. Their self-centered personalities will cause them to look out for themselves without concern for others, black or white.

  James P. Comer

  Children, Moral Development, Self

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